Category: Core Insights

  • Future of IC Profession Survey by Institute of Internal Communication

    Future of IC Profession Survey by Institute of Internal Communication

    About the paper

    The report examines how internal communication professionals view the current state and future direction of their profession, with a focus on strategic responsibilities, skills gaps, career progression, and the rise of “shadow communication” roles.

    It is original survey research based on an online questionnaire fielded in March 2025, with 303 respondents; the data is mainly UK-based, though it also includes participants from other parts of Europe, North America and a small number from other regions.

    The methodology is clearly stated, though the report does not specify sampling method beyond the online survey format.

    Length: 29 pages

    More information / download:
    https://www.ioic.org.uk/resource/new-ioic-report-reveals-evolving-role-of-internal-communication-professionals.html

    Core Insights

    1. How does the report argue that the internal communication profession is changing?

    The report’s core argument is that internal communication is moving beyond a mainly tactical delivery function and becoming a more strategic organisational role. It presents IC as increasingly tied to change, leadership, transformation, trust, resilience and organisational performance, rather than simply channels, content and campaigns. The introduction says IC is “increasingly seen as a strategic enabler of organisational success,” while the conclusion describes it as “fast becoming a critical driver of organisational performance.”

    At the same time, the report frames this change as double-edged. On the one hand, the profession is finally gaining the strategic access and recognition many practitioners have long wanted. On the other hand, that expansion of remit is happening faster than support, resourcing and development are catching up. The executive summary is explicit that many practitioners are now asked to contribute at a strategic level, but feel “ill-equipped, under-resourced and under-appreciated.”

    The report also places this shift in a wider context: AI and automation, digital transformation, remote and hybrid work, wellbeing pressures, economic uncertainty and social fragmentation are all reshaping the operating environment. In that setting, IC is no longer presented as a support service on the sidelines. It is shown as central to helping organisations maintain alignment, trust and human connection under pressure. That is the report’s main interpretive lens: IC matters more than before because organisations are harder to hold together than before.

    2. What evidence does the report provide that internal communication is becoming more strategic?

    The strongest evidence comes from the reported changes in responsibilities over the last year. The report says 56% of respondents saw an increase in change communication duties, 51% in digital transformation responsibilities, and 34% were asked to advise senior leadership more frequently. It also notes that one-third were being asked to do more influencing and advising, and that leaders increasingly see IC as a strategically important function.

    The charts on pages 9 and 10 reinforce that point visually and numerically. They show that the biggest growth areas are not classic production tasks but organisational change, digital transformation, data and analysis, leadership communication, listening, and senior-leader advising. Even where some traditional tasks remain important, the growth is disproportionately in areas associated with strategic judgement, insight and influence rather than message execution alone.

    Another useful signal is the report’s discussion of what is not changing much. Core activities such as communication planning, editing/writing/storytelling and communication strategy still dominate current roles, but practitioners now report managing an average of 15 different aspects of internal communication. That suggests the strategic layer is being added on top of an already broad tactical workload, rather than replacing it. In other words, the profession is not shedding delivery work; it is accumulating strategic work on top of it.

    This matters because the report is not simply saying IC professionals want to be strategic. It is saying organisations are already treating them more strategically. That is a major claim, and the evidence for it is fairly consistent across the report.

    3. What are the main pressures, capability gaps and morale problems affecting IC professionals?

    The report paints a picture of a profession under strain. The pressure starts with workload breadth: respondents report handling an average of 15 areas of responsibility, and the report repeatedly suggests that many are stretched too thinly to create the space for higher-value strategic work. The problem is therefore not only volume, but also role sprawl.

    The capability gap is another major theme. Only 30% of respondents in the introduction say they feel fully equipped with the necessary skills for their current roles, while later the skills section says only one in three believe they currently possess all the skills needed. The areas most often identified for development are strategic thinking, influencing, digital literacy, data literacy and change communication, with AI and digital proficiency especially prominent. The report clearly sees the future IC role as more insight-driven and technology-enabled than many professionals currently feel ready for.

    The morale findings make the picture more serious. Fewer than half say they feel happy, fulfilled or appreciated, while the report states that 80% express negative feelings about their work overall. On page 11, 51% say they feel stretched, 41% frustrated, and 37% stressed. The report interprets this not as ordinary job dissatisfaction but as a potential motivation crisis within the profession.

    The surrounding pressures help explain why. AI and automation are identified by 84% as the biggest emerging trend affecting the profession; wellbeing and burnout risk follow at 64%, and remote/hybrid work at 63%. Meanwhile, the main role challenges reported include rapid and continuous change, budget and resource constraints, the perceived value of internal communication, measurement/data, leadership buy-in, and communication noise. Together, these findings suggest that IC professionals are being asked to lead through uncertainty while also trying to justify their value, learn new tools, and absorb emotional labour.

    A particularly revealing tension in the report is that technological change is described as both promising and destabilising. Some respondents see AI as a way to reduce time spent on planning, analysis and writing so they can focus more on strategic and human work. But others worry it will increase expectations that they do more, faster, with fewer resources. So the technology story here is not techno-optimism; it is capacity anxiety.

    4. Why does career progression emerge as such a significant issue in the report?

    Career progression matters so much in the report because it acts as the point where ambition, recognition, skills and retention all collide. The introduction says 40% are uncertain about their career trajectory and around one in six intend to transition out of IC. Later sections expand this by showing that the biggest barrier to progression is the availability of suitable roles, cited by 64%, followed by confidence/imposter syndrome at 49% and work/life balance at 35%.

    The report also suggests that the issue is structural, not merely personal. Only around 39% feel there are clear opportunities for career prospects and progression within the IC profession, and only around four in ten feel they receive adequate training to keep pace with technological changes. It goes further by saying that IC careers are not well understood or adequately supported within many organisations. That means the profession is not just lacking openings; it is lacking clearly legible development pathways.

    This becomes even more important because the profession is clearly evolving. If the job is becoming more strategic, then career systems also need to evolve to reflect new specialisms and senior pathways. The report notes that many respondents want networking opportunities, career coaching, development courses and mentorship. It also highlights interest in deep specialism, not just upward promotion. That implies a profession that is maturing and differentiating, but whose career infrastructure has not fully matured with it.

    The report’s mention of the IoIC Profession Map is therefore significant. Awareness is high at 71%, but active usage is only around one-third, with just over half planning to use it. This suggests that the profession does have a development framework, but it is not yet embedded strongly enough in day-to-day career planning. So the report is implicitly arguing that clearer professional architecture is needed if the field wants to retain talent and convert strategic demand into sustainable careers.

    5. What does the rise of “shadow communication” imply for the future role and value of internal communication?

    The rise of shadow communication is one of the most strategically interesting findings in the whole report. It refers to communication activity increasingly being carried out by people outside the formal IC function. Almost two-thirds, 63%, report an increase in such activity, and the report identifies HR and operations as particularly active, followed by IT, leadership and team managers.

    The report’s view is nuanced. It acknowledges that decentralised communication can improve agility and relevance because people closer to the audience may communicate faster and more directly. But it is much more concerned with the downside: fragmentation, inconsistent messaging, misuse of channels, duplication of effort, confusion about credible information, and a weakening of internal communication’s strategic voice. In effect, shadow communication is presented as both a symptom of IC’s growing relevance and a threat to its coherence.

    This has a deeper implication for the profession’s future role. If communication work is spreading across the organisation, the IC function cannot define its value only as “the team that sends messages”. Its future value lies more in governance, coaching, partnership-building, standards, sense-making and strategic enablement. The report says internal communicators are in a prime position to coach others, enable them strategically, and preserve organisational voice and tone. That is a more distributed model of authority: less ownership of every output, more stewardship of the overall communication system.

    That is why the recommendations place so much emphasis on advocacy, clearer guidelines, stronger cross-functional relationships and support for colleagues outside IC. The report is effectively arguing that if shadow communication is now a fact of organisational life, then IC professionals must protect their relevance not by trying to monopolise communication, but by becoming the people who make organisation-wide communication more aligned, credible and effective. That is a subtle but important repositioning of the function.

  • Trends – Artificial Intelligence by BOND

    Trends – Artificial Intelligence by BOND

    About the paper

    The report is a mixed-methods, chart-led secondary analysis of artificial intelligence trends, compiled by BOND from a wide range of public and private company data, market research, government sources and additional non-public insights.

    It does not present one unified survey or a single fieldwork sample, so the total number of respondents, cases or participants is not clearly specified in the report; those figures vary by source and chart.

    The geographic scope is global, with a strong emphasis on the United States and China, alongside regional and country-level comparisons.

    BOND Capital and Mary Meeker have not released AI trend reports in years other than 2025. The 2025 “Trends – Artificial Intelligence” edition marked a revival of Meeker’s trend series after a six-year gap, evolving from her famous annual “Internet Trends” reports that ran from 1995 to 2019

    Length: 340 pages

    More information / download:
    https://www.bondcap.com/reports/tai

    Core Insights

    1) Why does the report argue that AI change is happening faster than ever?

    The report’s central argument is that AI is not simply another technology cycle but a compounding force built on top of existing internet infrastructure, massive digital datasets, better chips, improving models and intense capital deployment. BOND presents AI as accelerating faster than earlier technology waves because the rails were already in place: billions of connected users, decades of data accumulation and a ready-made global digital distribution system. That is why the report repeatedly frames the current moment as unprecedented in pace and scope, spanning technical, financial, social, physical and geopolitical change all at once.

    It also argues that AI differs from earlier waves because it arrived into a world that was already organised, connected and digitally mature. In the report’s telling, the internet took years to build the conditions for mass diffusion, whereas generative AI could scale immediately on top of them. This makes AI both a product of prior technological compounding and a new multiplier on top of it. The report therefore treats AI as a step-change in how information is accessed, created and distributed, rather than as a simple continuation of software history.

    A further reason the report sees change as unusually fast is that the race is not only commercial but geopolitical. It repeatedly links AI progress to strategic competition, especially between the US and China, and suggests that this rivalry is intensifying investment, product release cycles and the urgency of deployment. In that sense, speed is presented not just as a market phenomenon but as a consequence of state-level and corporate competition feeding each other.

    2) What evidence does the report provide that AI adoption and usage are scaling at an exceptional rate?

    The report uses ChatGPT as its clearest proxy for AI adoption and argues that its scale-up has been historically extraordinary. One headline figure is that ChatGPT reached an estimated 800 million weekly active users by April 2025. Another is that BOND compares ChatGPT’s path to 100 million users with earlier consumer platforms and concludes that it reached that threshold far faster than services such as Netflix, LinkedIn, Instagram and TikTok. The argument is straightforward: AI is not merely growing quickly; it is outpacing the adoption curves of landmark digital products.

    The report also stresses how global that adoption is. One of its most striking comparisons is that around 90% of ChatGPT app users were outside North America by year three, whereas the internet took roughly 23 years to reach a similar share. That comparison underpins one of the report’s biggest claims: unlike earlier foundational technologies that spread outwards from the US over a long period, AI reached a global audience almost immediately. The geographic focus here is explicitly worldwide, though the report notes that availability constraints in places such as China affect the underlying app data.

    Beyond end users, the report points to rising developer adoption and ecosystem participation. It highlights 6 million developers in NVIDIA’s ecosystem and says Google reported more than 7 million developers building with Gemini, up fivefold year on year. This matters because the report is not only describing consumer enthusiasm; it is also arguing that the builder base around AI is widening quickly, which in turn supports more products, more infrastructure demand and more downstream usage.

    3) How does the report explain the economics of AI, especially the tension between rising investment and falling usage costs?

    A key theme in the report is that AI economics are pulling in two directions at once. On one side, training and infrastructure costs are high and still rising. BOND highlights very large capital expenditure by major US technology firms and shows the “Big Six” reaching $212 billion in capex in 2024, up 63% year on year. That supports the report’s broader claim that AI requires enormous spending on compute, data centres and model development.

    On the other side, the report argues that the cost of using AI is falling sharply for customers and developers. Its framing is that while frontier training remains expensive, inference is becoming cheaper and cheaper, which leads to wider access, more experimentation and increasing convergence in model performance. In other words, the barriers to building frontier systems remain high, but the barriers to using AI tools are falling. That combination is central to the report’s optimism about continued adoption.

    The report also makes clear that monetisation remains unresolved. One illustrative chart compares estimated revenue and compute expense for a leading US-based AI LLM company and shows strong revenue growth alongside very large compute losses. That supports a more nuanced economic reading: AI demand is real, but profitability is not yet settled. The report therefore presents the current phase as one in which consumers and enterprise users are benefiting from rapid improvement and falling usage costs, while producers are still absorbing heavy investment burdens.

    4) What does the report suggest about competition, monetisation and the global balance of power in AI?

    The report presents competition in AI as both fierce and structurally destabilising. It emphasises that incumbents, startups, open-source communities and state-backed ecosystems are all competing at once. One reason monetisation looks fragile, in BOND’s view, is that open-source momentum and Chinese advances are placing pressure on the pricing power and defensibility of leading US model providers. The report therefore does not portray the current leaders as secure winners. Instead, it describes a market in which advantage can erode quickly.

    That point becomes especially clear in its competitive charts. BOND shows relative desktop user-share shifts across leading LLMs and highlights the emergence of a Chinese model within a short period. It also repeatedly returns to US–China rivalry as a defining strategic frame, suggesting that AI leadership may translate into broader geopolitical influence. In this sense, the report sees AI not just as a commercial contest over products and margins, but as a contest over standards, platforms and long-term international dependence.

    At the same time, the report is not purely alarmist. Its perspective is broadly pro-innovation and cautiously optimistic. It argues that intense competition may accelerate progress, widen access and keep the field dynamic, even if it also increases uncertainty. But its assumptions are clear: AI is now a strategic domain, leadership matters, and no company or country can assume its position is fixed.

    5) What broader implications does the report identify for work, society and the physical world?

    The report argues that AI is moving beyond chatbots and software assistance into the “physical world” and the workplace. One example it uses is autonomous mobility in San Francisco, where an autonomous taxi provider’s operating-zone market share rises sharply over the period shown. That chart is meant to illustrate that AI is no longer confined to digital interfaces; it is beginning to reshape real-world services, logistics and robotics-related applications.

    On work, the report says change is already visible rather than merely speculative. A chart on US IT jobs shows AI-related postings rising strongly while non-AI postings decline over the same indexed period. The implication is not simply that more technology jobs are appearing, but that the composition of demand is changing. BOND’s broader argument is that AI is likely to reconfigure the nature of work, the skills that employers value and the kinds of roles that expand or contract.

    The report also addresses social implications in a wider sense. It includes a benefits-and-risks section that acknowledges the promise of AI for productivity, science and material abundance, while also flagging risks such as surveillance, persuasion, employment disruption, biased decision-making, cybersecurity problems and safety-critical misuse. That matters because the report is not making a narrow market-growth case. It is arguing that AI is becoming a civilisation-scale force whose effects will be economic, political and societal at the same time.

    Taken together, the report’s conclusion is that AI’s significance lies in its breadth. It is changing information flows, business competition, labour demand, public power and physical systems all at once. That is why BOND treats this moment less as a discrete technology story and more as a large-scale transformation in how economies and societies operate.

  • Reimagining Tomorrow by Global Alliance for PR and Communication Management

    Reimagining Tomorrow by Global Alliance for PR and Communication Management

    About the paper

    The report is an original global survey of how PR and communication professionals are adopting, governing, and thinking about AI in their work.

    It is based on 473 responses collected between 18 February and 17 April 2025, using a mix of multiple-choice and open-ended survey questions; the geographic scope is global, with respondents from Africa, EMENA, North America, Australia/New Zealand, Asia-Pacific, and South and Central America, although the report notes self-selection bias, regional variation, and an overrepresentation of smaller organisations.

    Length: 21 pages

    More information / download:
    https://globalalliancepr.org/reimagining-tomorrow-ai-in-pr-and-communication-management/

    Core Insights

    1) What is the central argument of the report about AI in PR and communication management?

    The core argument is that AI adoption is already widespread in the profession, but governance, ethics, training, and strategic leadership have not kept pace. The report presents PR and communication as a profession at an inflection point: practitioners are using AI enthusiastically, yet the structures needed to guide that use responsibly are still underdeveloped. On page 3, the report’s summary makes this tension very clear: 91% are allowed to use AI, but only 39.4% of organisations have responsible AI frameworks, and 38.3% have no constraints at all. It also argues that the profession’s most valuable future contribution is not merely technical implementation, but shaping ethical frameworks, governance structures, and stakeholder communication about AI.

    The interpretive section on page 4 pushes that point further. It says the real opportunity for PR and communication teams is to elevate their strategic role by helping organisations develop and implement responsible AI, rather than remaining focused on tactical use. In other words, the report is not anti-AI; it is pro-adoption but strongly argues that adoption without guardrails is risky and professionally shortsighted.

    2) What does the survey reveal about how widely AI is being used, and how organisations are managing that use?

    The survey shows that AI use is already mainstream in the field. According to the report, 91% of respondents say AI is allowed in their organisations, and among the 9% who say it is not allowed, 52.8% admit they use it anyway as “shadow AI.” That alone suggests that AI adoption is not waiting for formal permission structures. Access is also relatively broad: 65.2% say all team members in PR and communication have access, while 24.3% say access is restricted to select individuals and 10.5% say it is limited to leaders only.

    At the same time, management of AI is patchy. The report says 38.3% of organisations have no constraints or restrictions in place, 37.5% rely on approved company-wide tools, 35.8% allow staff to explore freely, and only 18.3% have formal processes for AI tool recommendation and approval. Organisational support is also middling: the average support rating for implementation is just 2.78 out of 5, which the report explicitly describes as moderate but insufficient. That is an important finding because it shows that permission to use AI is much more common than meaningful support for using it well.

    So the picture is not one of controlled institutional rollout. It is closer to democratised but uneven adoption: people have access, many are experimenting, but the quality of support, governance, and process is inconsistent.

    3) Where is the biggest gap between current AI practice and what PR professionals believe their role should be?

    The biggest gap lies between tactical activity and strategic responsibility. The report says PR and communication professionals see governance and ethics as their top priorities: 33.3% rank formal AI governance structures as the number one priority, and 27.3% rank training for ethical, safe, and transparent AI use as the top priority. Yet their actual involvement patterns do not fully reflect those priorities. The report’s alignment analysis shows that teams are often more involved in technical implementation than in the activities they themselves consider most strategically important.

    This mismatch is described in detail on page 9. The report highlights the largest misalignments in lower-value technical areas such as AI certification programmes, where the gap is 80.6%, and advising on complex prompts and use cases, where the gap is 60.4%. By contrast, the smaller gaps are in ethical AI use and formal AI governance, which suggests these are the areas closest to the profession’s intended role. The report interprets this as a resource allocation problem: teams are spending time where they are currently needed, but not necessarily where they believe they create the most value.

    This matters because it reframes the profession’s future. The report is effectively saying that PR should not define its AI contribution by being good at prompts or faster outputs. It should define it by governance, ethics, risk, literacy, stakeholder engagement, and strategic counsel.

    4) What specific weaknesses does the report identify in governance, confidence, and stakeholder communication?

    The report identifies three especially important weaknesses.

    First, governance remains thin.

    Only 39.4% of organisations have a responsible AI guideline, policy, or framework. Even where such frameworks exist, they are far from universal, and coverage is uneven. Among organisations that do have guidelines, the most common elements are ethics/law, governance/standards, security/privacy, and risk/reputation. The report also notes that because of skip logic, those framework-content percentages apply only to the subset of respondents whose organisations already have guidelines, not to the entire sample.

    Second, ethical confidence is limited.

    Only 26.2% say they feel very confident evaluating the ethical implications of AI in their roles; 60.5% are only somewhat confident, and 13.3% are not confident. The report treats this as a major training opportunity, not a marginal issue. That reading is reinforced by respondents’ own definitions of responsible AI, which emphasise ethics, beneficial use, human oversight, verification, and transparency.

    Third, stakeholder communication is surprisingly weak.

    Given that communication is the profession’s core function, the report finds it striking that fewer than half communicate about responsible AI approaches to stakeholders, 46.9% communicate about AI ethics, and only 35.6% communicate about AI governance structures. The most common topic communicated is simply how to use AI tools, at 53.6%, which the report interprets as evidence of a tactical rather than strategic focus. This is one of the report’s sharpest critiques: PR professionals are not yet communicating about AI in the way their own strategic position would suggest they should.

    5) What broader implications does the report draw for the future of the profession?

    The report suggests that AI will reshape the profession significantly over the next five years, pushing it away from routine production work and towards more strategic, advisory, and governance-oriented roles. Respondents predict shifts “from content creator to content facilitator,” more focus on strategy, more automation of routine tasks, possible workforce reduction, increasing regulatory complexity, and a risk of depersonalisation or diminished creativity.

    The concern side is equally strong. On page 13, respondents describe the main threats as job displacement, reduced creativity, authenticity problems, misinformation, and loss of human interaction. That combination shows the profession is not simply optimistic about efficiency gains; it is also worried about relevance, trust, and the erosion of distinctly human value.

    The report’s conclusion is that the profession can either be diminished by AI or elevated by it. Elevation depends on moving beyond content creation, building stronger governance and ethical frameworks, investing in training, communicating more actively with stakeholders, and positioning PR as a strategic advisor on responsible AI implementation across the organisation. Its recommendations to professionals and organisations alike all point in that direction. So the deeper implication is not just that AI will change communications work, but that it may redefine what counts as valuable communications leadership in the first place.

  • Communicating with Robots, Connecting to People by the Scriptorium Initiative

    Communicating with Robots, Connecting to People by the Scriptorium Initiative

    About the paper

    The whitepaper argues that AI will fundamentally reshape corporate communications over the next decade, especially through synthetic stakeholders, predictive systems, mass personalisation, and a renewed premium on human authenticity.

    Methodologically, it appears to be an expert whitepaper built on secondary analysis and illustrative examples rather than original empirical research; no fieldwork method, sample size, timeframe for data collection, or respondent base is clearly specified.

    The geographic focus is framed as global, but the evidence cited draws from a mix of U.S.-centric examples and selected international references, so the precise geographic boundaries of the underlying data are not clearly specified in the report.

    Length: 14 pages

    More information / download:
    https://page.org/knowledge-base/communicating-with-robots-connecting-to-people-nanne-bos-aegon/

    Core Insights

    1. What is the whitepaper’s central argument about how AI will change corporate communications?

    The central argument is that AI will not merely improve existing communication workflows but will transform the entire logic of corporate communications. The paper says the profession has already moved beyond asking whether AI will change communications and must instead focus on how that change will unfold. It frames AI as both a technological and geopolitical force, and suggests that the speed, scale, and sophistication of communication will be radically altered by systems such as GPT-4, Claude, and Grok.

    At the same time, the paper insists that the core purpose of corporate communications will remain stable. It explicitly says that communicators will still need to build trust, deepen understanding with stakeholders, maintain licence to operate, and influence behaviour. In other words, the mission stays the same, but the mechanisms and operating environment change dramatically.

    The whitepaper therefore presents AI not as a side issue or a tool trend, but as a structural shift that changes who receives messages, how they are interpreted, how fast they circulate, and what communicators are actually responsible for. Its five predictions are meant as a framework for navigating that transition while staying anchored in enduring communication goals.

    2. What does the paper mean by “synthetic stakeholders”, and why does it see them as so significant?

    The idea of “synthetic stakeholders” is one of the paper’s most important claims. It argues that, by the mid-2030s, people will increasingly rely on personal AI agents as their main interface with organisations. These agents will not simply summarise information; they will filter, verify, interpret, negotiate, and sometimes even decide on behalf of the human stakeholder. That means journalists, investors, employees, regulators, and customers may no longer engage with corporate communication directly, but through AI intermediaries.

    The report sees this as significant because it changes the locus of trust. Instead of stakeholders primarily trusting brands, institutions, or traditional media, they may trust their own AI agents more. That has major implications for reputation and influence. If AI agents become the gatekeepers of credibility, then communicators must create messages that are readable, interpretable, and verifiable by machines as well as by humans.

    The paper also links synthetic stakeholders to the “death of the single narrative”. It argues that AI agents will personalise information so extensively that there will no longer be one broadly shared version of a corporate story. Different stakeholders may receive materially different framings based on personal history, biases, preferences, and risk profiles. The implication is that communication becomes less about controlling one public narrative and more about maintaining coherence and credibility across many parallel, AI-mediated realities.

    3. How does the whitepaper describe the shift from mass communication to mass conversations and from reactive to predictive communications?

    The paper’s second and third predictions work together. First, it says the old broadcast model of one-to-many messaging is ending. In its place, organisations will engage in “mass conversations”: millions of simultaneous, AI-mediated, highly personalised interactions with stakeholders. These conversations will supposedly be context-aware, emotionally intelligent, and adapted to each person’s needs, role, behaviour, and preferences. Investors, employees, and customers would all receive tailored communication rather than standardised messages.

    This matters because the communicator’s role changes from crafting a single message to designing adaptive systems. The report suggests future communicators will define narrative models, supervise tone calibration, and audit huge numbers of micro-interactions. So communication becomes less a matter of publishing and more a matter of orchestrating intelligent, ongoing relationship management at scale.

    The move from reactive to predictive communications goes even further. The paper argues that AI will enable organisations to anticipate reputational risks, stakeholder disengagement, morale problems, or regulatory friction before they are visible through conventional means. It imagines AI systems that simulate possible stakeholder reactions, run communication scenarios in parallel, forecast trust impact, and identify likely virality or misinformation risks. In this model, communications becomes a foresight function rather than just a response function.

    Taken together, these two predictions describe a future in which corporate communication is continuous, personalised, and anticipatory. The communicator is recast as a strategist and overseer of adaptive systems, rather than primarily as a writer, spokesperson, or campaign manager.

    4. Why does the paper argue that human authenticity will become more valuable as AI becomes more powerful?

    The paper’s fourth prediction is that AI abundance will increase, not reduce, the value of human authenticity. Its reasoning is straightforward: as generative AI floods the information environment with cheap, abundant, low-value content, audiences will become more resistant to anything that feels synthetic or manipulative. The report refers to this as a coming “synthetic content crisis” and says AI filters will increasingly screen out content that lacks originality, emotional value, or resonance.

    In response, the communication that cuts through will be the communication that feels genuinely human. The paper highlights three qualities that will matter most: emotional depth, ethical clarity, and human voice. It argues that trust will increasingly attach to visible human sincerity rather than to polished, scaled, anonymous messaging. This is why it says communicators will become “custodians of authenticity” in a synthetic age.

    Importantly, the whitepaper does not frame this as an anti-AI argument. Instead, it advances the idea of “co-intelligence”: AI handles scale, complexity, translation, and real-time personalisation, while humans contribute judgment, moral reasoning, emotional nuance, vulnerability, and authenticity. So the paper’s conclusion is not that AI replaces human communication, but that the distinctively human elements become more strategically valuable as machine-generated communication proliferates.

    5. What are the report’s main implications for the future role, structure, and ethics of the communications function?

    The paper argues that the communications function will become AI-native. That means the department of the future will look very different from the traditional press-office or corporate affairs structure. Routine content production will increasingly be automated, while human professionals move into roles focused on oversight, orchestration, ethics, and strategic narrative design.

    It predicts new specialist roles such as:

    • AI Narrative Designers
    • Predictive Strategists
    • Communication Ethicists
    • and even Chief Narrative Intelligence Officers.

    It also says existing silos between internal communication, PR, investor relations, and brand strategy will weaken, giving way to a more unified narrative function powered by integrated AI systems. Teams may become smaller in headcount but more specialised in capabilities, drawing on disciplines such as linguistics, data science, behavioural psychology, and ethics.

    Ethics is a major theme here. The report repeatedly warns that predictive communications and AI-generated influence raise serious questions about manipulation, informed consent, transparency, and accountability. It therefore argues that strong governance frameworks will be essential, including explainable AI, clarity about data sources and model logic, and disclosure around synthetic humans or AI-generated messages. High-stakes moments such as layoffs, mergers, or crises are still presented as fundamentally human occasions in which AI should assist rather than replace human communicators.

    The deeper implication is that the future communicator is not just a better prompt writer or AI user. The role becomes more strategic, more cross-functional, and more ethically exposed. The paper’s perspective is that AI raises the bar for human communicators: they will need more judgment, more empathy, and more moral authority, not less.

  • State of Global Workforce 2025 by Gallup

    State of Global Workforce 2025 by Gallup

    About the paper

    The report synthesises Gallup’s annual global employee-experience research, combining Gallup World Poll data with additional random samples of working populations in the United States and an opt-in web component for China.

    It is an original quantitative research report based on surveys of employed adults aged 15+; the 2024 findings draw on 227,347 employed respondents collected from April to December 2024, within a wider 2009–2024 trend dataset of 5,490,517 respondents across more than 160 countries and areas.

    Methodological details are clearly stated, though some country results are suppressed where sample sizes are too small.

    Length: 141 pages

    More information / download:
    https://www.gallup.com/file/workplace/659528/state-of-the-global-workplace-2025-download.pdf

    Core Insights

    1) What is the central argument of the report about the state of the global workplace in 2025?

    Gallup’s central argument is that the global workplace is at a critical moment: employee engagement and wellbeing have deteriorated just as organisations are entering a period of major transformation driven by AI and broader workplace disruption. The report frames this as a leadership challenge rather than a purely economic or technological one. Leaders must decide whether to use this moment to strengthen management, reconnect teams and improve performance, or risk further decline.

    The report’s headline evidence is stark. Global employee engagement fell from 23% to 21% in 2024, only the second decline in the past 12 years and equal in size to the fall recorded during the year of COVID-19 lockdowns. Gallup estimates that this drop cost the global economy US$438 billion in lost productivity. At the same time, global life evaluation among employees fell to 33%, suggesting that workers’ overall sense of wellbeing has weakened as well.

    So the report is not merely saying that people feel a bit less positive about work. It is arguing that the workplace is becoming more fragile at exactly the point when organisations need resilience, adaptability and trust.

    2) What does the report identify as the main driver of declining engagement and wellbeing?

    Gallup is unusually direct: the main driver is managers. The report says manager engagement fell from 30% to 27%, while individual contributor engagement stayed flat at 18%. No other major worker category saw as large a decline. Young managers under 35 saw a five-point drop in engagement, and female managers saw a seven-point drop.

    The same pattern appears in wellbeing. Older managers saw a five-point decline in wellbeing, while female managers again recorded a seven-point drop. Individual contributors, by contrast, improved slightly on life evaluation. Gallup therefore presents managers as the pressure point where workplace strain is showing up first and most intensely.

    The report links this to the accumulation of post-pandemic disruption: retirements and turnover, the hiring boom and bust, rapidly restructured teams, tighter budgets, supply chain issues, changing customer expectations, digital transformation, AI tools, and new employee expectations around flexibility and remote work. Managers sit in the middle of all of that. In Gallup’s telling, they have become the human shock absorbers of organisational change.

    3) Why does manager engagement matter so much for organisational and economic performance?

    Gallup’s answer is that managers are the single biggest determinant of team engagement. The report states that 70% of team engagement is attributable to the manager. That means problems at management level do not stay there. They cascade downward into team morale, effort, productivity and retention.

    The report stresses that engaged employees are more productive, less absent, better at building customer relationships and more effective at generating results. It also notes that countries with less engaged managers tend to have less engaged individual contributors. So this is not just an internal HR issue. Gallup connects manager disengagement to broader business performance and even GDP growth.

    That is why the report repeatedly warns that if manager engagement keeps falling, the damage will not stop with managers and will not stop with engagement. Gallup presents manager burnout as a leading indicator of wider organisational decline: poorer performance, more absenteeism, more turnover, weaker team cultures and reduced economic output.

    4) What do the global and regional data reveal about the current pattern of employee experience?

    At global level, the picture is mixed but troubling. In 2024, 21% of employees were engaged, 62% not engaged and 17% actively disengaged. Only 33% were classified as thriving in life overall, while 40% reported daily stress, 23% daily sadness and 22% daily loneliness. Half of workers were watching for or actively seeking a new job.

    The regional pattern is highly uneven. On engagement, the highest regional levels were in the United States/Canada and Latin America/Caribbean, both at 31%, while Europe ranked last at 13%. On thriving, Australia/New Zealand led at 56%, followed by Latin America/Caribbean at 54% and the United States/Canada at 52%, while South Asia ranked lowest at 15%. Europe is notable for combining relatively high life evaluation with the lowest engagement, suggesting that people may feel comparatively well in life while still feeling detached from work.

    The emotional pattern is also revealing. Stress is especially high in the United States/Canada, Australia/New Zealand, East Asia and the Middle East/North Africa. Loneliness is highest in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, while anger and sadness are most elevated in South Asia and parts of the Middle East/North Africa. Meanwhile, Europe has the lowest regional engagement but also among the lowest levels of anger and loneliness. This suggests that disengagement is not always accompanied by emotional volatility; in some regions it may look more like resignation or detachment.

    Another notable point is the work-location breakdown. Globally, exclusively remote employees show the highest engagement at 31%, compared with 23% for hybrid workers and 19% for on-site non-remote-capable workers. Hybrid and on-site remote-capable workers have the highest thriving scores at 42%, while fully remote workers report the highest loneliness, sadness and stress. So the report hints that flexibility may boost engagement and wellbeing in some respects, but also carries emotional trade-offs.

    5) What actions does Gallup recommend leaders take in response?

    Gallup’s prescription is focused almost entirely on rebuilding management capability. The report lays out three actions.

    First, ensure all managers receive training. Fewer than half of the world’s managers, 44%, say they have received management training. Gallup argues this is the most achievable intervention and says managers who receive training are half as likely to be actively disengaged as those who do not.

    Second, teach managers effective coaching techniques. Gallup cites evidence that participants in manager training focused on best practices saw up to 22% higher engagement than non-participants, their teams saw engagement rise by up to 18%, and manager performance metrics improved by 20% to 28%, with effects lasting nine to 18 months after training.

    Third, invest in ongoing manager development to improve wellbeing. The report says manager training can raise manager thriving from 28% to 34%, and when that training is paired with active encouragement for development, thriving rises to 50%. Gallup therefore treats manager development not just as a performance tool but as one of the most effective wellbeing investments leaders can make.

    This leads to the report’s broader conclusion: the role of the manager needs to be rethought. Gallup argues that improving manager engagement is the key lever for reversing declining productivity, improving employee wellbeing and unlocking a much larger economic upside. It estimates that if the world’s workplace were fully engaged, US$9.6 trillion could be added to the global economy, equivalent to 9% of global GDP.

    Overall, the report’s message is clear: the workplace problem is not simply that employees are tired or dissatisfied. It is that the management layer is under strain, and unless leaders strengthen it deliberately, the costs will spread through teams, organisations and economies.

  • Moving Ahead – 2025 C-suite Perspectives Study by Padilla

    Moving Ahead – 2025 C-suite Perspectives Study by Padilla

    About the paper

    The paper is a mixed-methods thought leadership report on how senior business leaders are approaching 2025, combining original survey research, executive interviews and desk research.

    Padilla says it surveyed more than 100 C-suite executives and 1,000 employed adults, and interviewed nearly 50 C-suite leaders; the report does not clearly specify the countries covered, so the geographic scope is not clearly specified in the report.

    Length: 12 pages

    More information / download:
    https://padillaco.com/c-suite-perspectives

    Core Insights

    1. What is the report’s central argument about the 2025 mindset of C-suite leaders?

    The core argument is that C-suite leaders have moved from recent years of conflict and fatigue into a more determined, forward-looking posture. They are described as “cautiously optimistic” and eager to make progress after years of reacting to disruption, but they are doing so in an environment still marked by uncertainty, mistrust, fragility and political tension. The report frames this as a balancing act: leaders want momentum, but they know the conditions for driving change remain unstable.

    The report also presents this as an evolution over time. In 2022, leaders were “conflicted”; in 2023–24, the mood shifted to “fatigue and focus”; and in 2024–25, the mindset is “moving ahead.” The recap diagram on page 11 makes this progression explicit and shows that the new phase is not about optimism alone, but about trying to capitalise on change resilience, rethink the employee-employer relationship, prepare next leaders and communicate in an era of reduced trust.

    So the report’s main meaning is not merely that leaders feel better. It is that they want to stop managing one crisis after another and start advancing strategy again. But the report is equally clear that progress depends on whether leaders can set direction clearly, manage expectations and prevent what it calls “trust erosion.” If they cannot, forward motion may stall and turnover may continue.

    2. Which pressures and leadership priorities are shaping executive decision-making most strongly in 2025?

    The report says inflation and economic uncertainty remain the top priorities, but the fastest-rising challenges now cluster around technology, security and talent. The page 3 chart shows the biggest year-over-year increases in leadership challenges as determining whether and how to leverage AI (+13), protecting data privacy and security (+11), attracting and retaining talent (+11), adapting to market shifts in consumer behaviour (+8), achieving business performance goals (+7), and modernising technology infrastructure (+7).

    This matters because it shows that the executive agenda is broadening. Leaders are not only worrying about macroeconomic turbulence anymore. They are also dealing with the practical implications of technological change, workforce expectations and business adaptation. The report interprets this as a sign that leaders are ready to “get on with it,” but need to revisit purpose, vision and direction so stakeholders understand what the organisation is trying to do.

    The report also highlights a cluster of leadership qualities rising in importance: confidence, flexibility, humility, stoicism and growth mindset. On page 4, these are presented almost as a new leadership toolkit for the moment. The message is that leaders expect criticism, know they will have to make difficult decisions, and must communicate those decisions in ways that maintain trust among employees, investors, customers and others. In other words, the report assumes that communication ability is no longer a soft extra, but central to leadership effectiveness.

    3. Where does the report identify the biggest perception gaps between leaders and employees?

    The report repeatedly highlights perception gaps between leaders and employees, especially around readiness for change, well-being and political culture at work. These gaps are among the most important findings because they suggest that executive confidence may not be matched by employee experience.

    On change readiness, page 5 shows that 67% of the C-suite believe employees are fully or very ready to embrace and assist with change initiatives, while only 41% of employees say the same about themselves. That is a substantial disconnect. The report’s conclusion is that leaders cannot assume prior change efforts have fully brought employees along; change management and change communication remain essential.

    On well-being, page 6 shows another sharp gap: 50% of the C-suite think employee well-being has improved over the past year, while only 29% of employees agree. The report adds that leaders are puzzled because they believe they have already offered support through mental-health resources and flexibility, whereas employees’ concerns are often tied to broader pressures such as health, living costs and inflation. This implies that organisational interventions alone may not feel sufficient from the employee point of view.

    A third gap concerns politics and dialogue. On page 7, 44% of C-suite leaders think politics are openly discussed among people with opposing views in a constructive way, compared with only 24% of employees. This suggests leaders may overestimate the health of internal discourse. The report then connects this to a broader movement from trust and ambivalence toward scepticism, polarization and even grievance. That is one of the report’s strongest warnings: fragile culture is not just about morale, but about the risk of deeper social fracture inside organisations.

    4. How does the report interpret current shifts in ESG, DEI and AI through a business-strategy lens?

    The report argues that ESG and DEI are being reframed less in moral or idealistic language and more in pragmatic business terms. It says these issues have consistently ranked low as explicit C-suite priorities, yet the outcomes associated with them, such as talent attraction, retention, culture and adaptation to market change, remain important. In other words, the substance still matters even if the framing changes.

    Page 8 is especially revealing. The report says pushback on ESG and DEI is causing some leaders to rethink strategy while others are continuing, sometimes more quietly, and grounding their case in business value. It explicitly calls this an “era of business pragmatism.” The table on that page contrasts “altruism” and “pragmatism,” for example framing sustainability not as leaving the Earth better for future generations, but as ensuring access to clean water needed for products; and framing DEI not simply as fairness, but as necessary for talent and innovation.

    That framing reveals one of the report’s assumptions: in the current climate, strategic legitimacy increasingly depends on proving commercial relevance. The implication is not that values disappear, but that leaders are expected to justify values-led initiatives in operational and economic terms. The report advises companies to tie ESG and DEI clearly to organisational goals, talent strategy, mission and business success, while also considering the downstream effects of any changes in approach or language.

    On AI, the report is similarly pragmatic but more overtly positive. Page 9 says 83% of C-suite respondents are selectively or aggressively adopting AI. Their main motivations are improving the quality of products and services (47%) and keeping pace competitively or gaining advantage (43%). At the same time, employees are more wary, with 24% seeing AI as a moderate or significant threat. So AI is presented as both a strategic imperative and a communication challenge. Leaders may move faster than employees, but if they do not explain the vision and bring people with them, adoption friction will increase.

    5. What are the consequences of all this for leadership communication, succession and organisational momentum?

    The report’s strongest practical conclusion is that communication sits at the centre of execution. Across change, culture, AI, politics and trust, leaders are told to communicate direction clearly, explain difficult choices, use multiple messengers, and help people understand not only what is changing but why. Page 4 even includes the blunt observation that communication is still the most important skillset a leader can have, and that too few leaders possess it.

    This matters because the report links communication directly to trust and buy-in. If employees do not feel heard, if hybrid-work shifts are not explained well, if political tensions are ignored, or if AI strategy is imposed without context, the organisation risks losing momentum. The recurring implication sections throughout the report keep returning to this idea: communication is how leaders convert strategic intent into organisational movement.

    The second major consequence concerns succession and executive stability. On page 10, the report describes an ongoing “Great Executive Resignation,” saying turnover remains at very high levels and that there has been a seven-point increase in leaders stepping back earlier than in the past, to about one in five leaders. It also notes that many next-level leaders do not necessarily want to step into top roles. Among employees aged 52+, 61% want their career or responsibilities to stay the same or be simplified, while only 31% want growth in career or responsibilities. The implication is that succession pipelines are under strain.

    The deeper conclusion is that organisational momentum is now a retention issue as well as a performance issue. Leaders who see progress are more likely to stay; those who do not may step away faster. That means companies need to build leadership capability below the top tier, strengthen communication skills across multiple levels, and create visible forward movement. The report ends by saying leaders want more trust, civility and predictability in 2025, and suggests that those who can “plan and pivot” effectively will be better placed to drive meaningful change and growth.

  • Navigating the future of communication by Burson

    Navigating the future of communication by Burson

    About the paper

    The paper is a forward-looking trends report on how AI, media change, misinformation, data consolidation, Web3, and reputation risk are expected to reshape communications in 2025 and beyond.

    It appears to be a mixed secondary-analysis and thought-leadership report rather than original research: it synthesises external forecasts, surveys, risk reports, media articles, and Burson’s own strategic framing, but does not clearly specify a formal methodology, sample, fieldwork period, or a defined respondent base.

    The geographic scope is partly global and partly U.S.-centred: many headline claims are framed globally, but several examples and the closing policy section focus specifically on the United States.

    Length: 9 pages

    More information / download:
    https://www.bursonglobal.com/insights/global/navigating-the-future-of-communications-10-innovation-trends-for-2025-and-beyond

    Core Insights

    1. What is the report’s central argument about the future of communications?

    The core argument is that communications is entering a period of accelerated, technology-driven transformation in which AI is not just another tool but the main force reshaping how organisations understand audiences, manage risk, create content, monitor issues, and protect reputation. The report presents this as both a strategic opportunity and a survival challenge: communicators who adapt quickly will become more predictive, data-driven, and resilient, while those who do not risk falling behind in an increasingly volatile environment.

    Burson’s framing is not that one single trend dominates everything, but that several trends are converging at once. AI model improvement, agentic systems, fragmented media, misinformation, explainability, and proactive reputation management all reinforce one another. That means communications is becoming more complex, more technical, and more tightly connected to business strategy. The report repeatedly returns to the idea that communicators must move from reactive messaging to continuous monitoring, predictive analysis, and earlier intervention.

    The conclusion makes this explicit: future success depends on combining data-driven strategy with ethics, adaptability, and human judgement. In other words, the report argues that communications is becoming a more intelligence-led, risk-aware, and technologically mediated function, but one that still depends on trust, authenticity, and human connection.

    2. Which trends does the report identify as most important, and what practical shifts do they imply for communicators?

    The report’s ten trends are: rapid improvement in AI models and computing capacity; the rise of agentic frameworks; a shifting media landscape; data consolidation and intelligence; misinformation as a growing threat; the continuing importance of human expertise; explainable AI; cognitive AI for proactive reputation risk mitigation; convergence between Web3 and generative AI; and the growing importance of proactive reputation management.

    Taken together, these trends imply several practical shifts. First, communicators are expected to become more technologically fluent. The report says they must understand which AI models and tools to use for predictive messaging, crisis management, engagement, and analytics. Second, workflows are likely to become more automated through AI agents, but with a continued need for human oversight and authenticity. Third, media relations and social strategy can no longer focus only on established platforms; communicators need stronger social listening and broader platform awareness as the media environment fragments and becomes more politically charged.

    Fourth, the function becomes more data-intensive. Burson argues that communicators need stronger analytics capabilities and better integration of multiple data sources in order to spot patterns, measure performance, and anticipate issues. Fifth, reputation work becomes more preventive than reactive: predictive analytics, scenario planning, and faster response systems are presented as essential. Finally, the report suggests that communication leaders must build teams that blend AI literacy with strategic thinking, emotional intelligence, and crisis judgement. That is a notable shift away from seeing communications mainly as content production or media handling.

    3. What evidence and patterns does the report use to support its view of change?

    The report relies heavily on externally sourced statistics, market forecasts, and selected examples to create a picture of rapid acceleration. For AI, it cites projected global market growth to $2.58 trillion by 2032 and says training compute for leading models has doubled every six months. It also references recent model launches such as GPT-4.5, Gemini 2.5, and Gemini Robotics as evidence that capability is improving fast and expanding into more multimodal and physical-world applications.

    For media and misinformation, it points to Bluesky’s user growth, public concern about AI-driven misinformation, the spread of political deepfakes, and the World Economic Forum’s ranking of misinformation as the top short-term risk. These examples support a broader pattern: the information environment is becoming harder to control, less stable, and more vulnerable to manipulation.

    For data, trust, and reputation, the report cites enterprise adoption of real-time analytics, claims about efficiency gains from AI-driven data consolidation, projected growth in AI-powered risk-mitigation tools, and statistics linking strong reputation to faster crisis recovery and stronger purchase intent. The sector heatmap on page 7 adds another pattern: Burson argues that healthcare, technology, and financial services are likely to feel the strongest immediate impact from these trends, while trust-related issues such as explainability, misinformation, and reputation management matter broadly across sectors. Visually, the report uses charts and a heatmap to reinforce the idea that these changes are measurable, cross-sectoral, and already under way rather than speculative.

    4. What assumptions, perspective, and purpose shape the report?

    The report is clearly written from an industry advisory perspective. Its purpose is not only to describe future developments but to persuade communication leaders that they need to modernise their capabilities and invest in more advanced intelligence, monitoring, and risk-management approaches. The repeated “So what” sections show that the paper is designed as an actionable executive briefing rather than a neutral academic study.

    Its perspective is also shaped by Burson’s commercial position. The paper repeatedly frames the trends in ways that align with Burson’s services and proprietary tools, and later names products such as Sonar, Decipher, Flight School, and The Fount as solutions for the challenges described. That does not automatically invalidate the analysis, but it does mean the report should be read as strategic thought leadership with a business-development dimension, not as detached independent research.

    A further assumption running through the report is that more intelligence, more data integration, and more AI-supported foresight will generally improve communications outcomes. Another is that trust, transparency, and human judgement will remain crucial even as automation grows. The report therefore holds two ideas together: communications will become more machine-assisted, but legitimacy will still depend on explainability, credibility, and human expertise.

    5. What are the report’s main implications and conclusions for organisations and communication leaders?

    The main implication is that communications leaders need to rethink the function as an integrated capability spanning technology, intelligence, risk sensing, governance, and reputation strategy. This is no longer just about crafting messages; it is about building systems that can detect issues early, model likely reactions, respond quickly, and maintain trust across unstable media and political conditions.

    A second implication is organisational: teams will need reskilling. The report suggests that AI literacy, data fluency, and comfort with predictive tools will become baseline expectations, but that these must be combined with distinctly human strengths such as judgement, empathy, and crisis leadership. This implies changes in hiring, training, and operating models.

    A third implication concerns governance and trust. Because the report highlights misinformation, explainability, regulation, and political volatility, it suggests that communicators will increasingly sit closer to questions of ethics, compliance, public affairs, and executive risk management. The section on the 2025 U.S. administration makes that especially clear: communications is portrayed as operating in a more volatile regulatory and platform environment where policy shifts, moderation changes, tariffs, and infrastructure decisions affect both messaging and stakeholder trust.

    The final conclusion is that the winners will be the organisations that become proactive rather than reactive. Burson’s report consistently argues for earlier sensing, faster response, stronger data integration, and more scenario-based planning. Its ultimate message is that the future of communications belongs to organisations that can combine technological capability with transparency, agility, and human-centred judgement.

  • 2025 Global Communication Report by USC Annenberg

    2025 Global Communication Report by USC Annenberg

    About the paper

    The report examines how four forces—artificial intelligence, hybrid and remote work, the changing media landscape, and political polarization—are reshaping public relations, with a particular focus on generational differences across Gen Z, Millennials, Gen X and Baby Boomers.

    It is based on original research using an online survey fielded from 9 January to 1 February 2025, with 1,077 respondents drawn through non-probability volunteer sampling from PR professionals and related communicators.

    The data is international but weighted heavily towards the United States: 51% of respondents were from organisations operating in the U.S., with additional respondents from the rest of the Americas, Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and 22% representing global companies.

    Length: 44 pages

    More information / download:
    https://annenberg.usc.edu/research/center-public-relations/global-communication-report

    Core Insights

    1. What is the report’s central argument about the future of public relations?

      The report’s core argument is that public relations is entering a period of profound disruption, and that the profession’s future will be determined by how well it responds to four simultaneous pressures: AI, hybrid work, media fragmentation and political polarization. The authors argue that these trends are not isolated; together they are redefining how communicators work, what skills matter, how organisations recruit, and what kinds of strategic choices PR professionals will have to make.

      At a headline level, the profession remains notably optimistic. The report says 74% of respondents have a very or somewhat positive outlook for the future growth of public relations, despite mergers, layoffs and broader economic, political and technological upheaval. That optimism is broadly shared across generations, but the report questions whether the industry is genuinely prepared for what lies ahead or simply overly confident.

      The deeper argument is that the biggest story is not just disruption itself, but the gap in how different generations interpret it. Younger practitioners are consistently more positive about AI, new media channels, flexible work and purpose-led expectations, while older professionals tend to be more cautious, more attached to traditional models and more concerned about misinformation, staffing reductions and social risk. The phrase “Mind the Gap” is therefore not just branding; it is the report’s organising thesis about the future of the profession.

      2. How does the report say AI is changing public relations, and where are the main points of agreement and disagreement?

      The report presents AI as the most important positive force shaping the future of PR, with 60% saying it will have a positive effect on the profession and 28% saying it will have a negative one. It also finds that communicators already use AI in practical, operational areas rather than in abstract or speculative ways. The most common current uses are social media, research and analytics, and press material development, while investor relations and public affairs lag well behind.

      There is also a strong pragmatic streak in the findings. Respondents generally believe humans will remain essential to effective public relations, but their confidence varies sharply by generation. Boomers and Gen X are much more likely than Gen Z and Millennials to strongly agree that humans will remain central. At the same time, younger groups are more likely to believe AI will generate more content, reduce costs, reshape hiring and alter agency economics. In other words, younger professionals are not necessarily more idealistic about AI; they are often more commercially radical in what they think it will do.

      The report also highlights a training paradox. Most respondents do not expect entry-level employees to be AI experts; a functional level of competence is seen as sufficient by the largest share. Yet there is little confidence in universities or PR agencies as the main providers of AI training. Instead, respondents look most strongly to specialised programmes. That implies an institutional gap: AI matters enormously, but the profession does not yet appear to believe its traditional training systems are fully equipped to prepare the next generation.

      At the level of future impact, the report is mixed rather than triumphalist. Many expect AI to improve work quality and individual creativity, but substantial shares also expect reduced staffing and lower agency budgets. So the report does not portray AI as a simple productivity win. It presents it as a force that may simultaneously improve output, change business models and threaten traditional career structures, especially at entry level.

      3. What does the report reveal about hybrid and remote work, and why does it matter for the profession?

      The report shows that hybrid and remote work are no longer fringe preferences but central expectations within the profession. Respondents report an average of roughly two days per week in the office overall, and most expect the future to include either a minimum number of days on premises or some form of remote option. Only a relatively small minority expect to be in the office every day.

      The significance of this is not just logistical. The report frames flexibility as a strategic issue affecting morale, recruitment, retention and culture. Strong majorities across all generations say flexible work schedules matter, and many believe hybrid working makes it easier to recruit top talent. At the same time, there is no consensus that remote work automatically improves productivity; support is much stronger for flexibility than for the idea that home working always produces better work. That distinction matters because it suggests the debate is no longer simply about efficiency. It is about what professionals now expect from work itself.

      Generationally, younger respondents are more likely to see hybrid work as the future and more willing to trade salary for flexibility. The report points to a 25-point gap between Gen Z and Boomers on willingness to take a pay cut to work from home. It also finds that in-house professionals face tougher return-to-office pressures than agency staff, and that in-house respondents are more likely to say their organisations want employees back in the office full-time.

      The broader implication is that hybrid work has become a competitive issue for employers. The report explicitly suggests that organisations insisting on rigid return-to-office policies may face an uphill battle in attracting and retaining talent. It also notes that 74% of mid-level or higher PR professionals would hire a talented candidate regardless of where they are located. That points to a profession increasingly comfortable with distributed talent, even if organisational policies have not fully caught up.

      4. How does the report describe the changing media landscape, and what does it suggest this means for PR strategy and skills?

      The report argues that PR is moving decisively away from legacy media dominance and towards a more fragmented, platform-led environment in which social media, podcasts, apps and influencers carry growing strategic weight. Social media is rated the most relevant channel for 2030, followed by podcasts and smartphone apps, while network television, print publications and cable news are seen as least relevant.

      This shift has two important dimensions. First, it changes what communicators believe works. For marketing campaigns, viral activity on TikTok or Instagram is rated most effective overall, ahead of podcast interviews and morning television appearances. Second, it changes what skills matter. The report still places writing at the top of entry-level skill priorities, but it also shows growing importance for social content creation, research, analytics, influencer relations and paid media—especially among younger respondents.

      Gen Z is the clear outlier throughout this section. Younger practitioners are more bullish on social media, podcasts, influencer promotion, paid advertising and even the continuing utility of press releases. The report interprets this as more than a preference difference. It suggests younger communicators understand how content circulates on the platforms they grew up with, and are therefore better positioned to navigate creator relationships, platform logic and searchability. Older professionals, by contrast, tend to place relatively more value on legacy outlets and are more sceptical of the newer channels.

      But the report does not celebrate this transition uncritically. It identifies misinformation as the biggest concern arising from the changing media environment. Older generations are especially worried that declining legacy media will damage news accuracy, credibility and the public’s ability to distinguish fact from falsehood. Younger respondents are less alarmed, which the report interprets as partly reflecting their comfort with digital information environments. Still, the report warns that AI may make this harder for everyone, and even suggests PR agencies may need internal fact-checking capacity as a reputation safeguard.

      5. What does the report say about political polarization, corporate purpose and the generational divide in values?

      Political polarization emerges as the most negative of the four forces studied. It is the trend respondents are least likely to see as beneficial and one of the hardest for practitioners to navigate in day-to-day work. The report describes polarization not simply as disagreement, but as a structural feature of contemporary politics and media—something used to drive attention, fundraising and support, and something that creates uncertainty and reputational risk for organisations.

      One of the report’s most striking findings is the collapse in support for companies addressing social issues not directly relevant to their business. The share answering “yes” to that proposition fell from 89% in 2023 to 85% in 2024 and then to 52% in 2025. The report presents this as evidence that corporate purpose has run into the hard realities of backlash, consumer anger and political conflict. It explicitly links this decline to polarization and to business leaders becoming more risk-averse after high-profile controversies.

      Yet here too the generational divide is crucial. Younger communicators remain far more supportive of corporate purpose, inclusion initiatives and broader social commitments than older groups. The report shows that Gen Z places significantly greater importance on inclusion initiatives and on public policy issues such as abortion and immigration when considering whether to work for a company. It also finds that Gen Z is more optimistic that companies will continue to increase commitments to taking stands on social issues, purpose-driven campaigns and ESG-style initiatives, while older generations are more doubtful.

      This produces one of the report’s most important implications: future recruitment and retention may hinge not only on salary and flexibility, but on organisational values. The report suggests companies retreating from inclusion or broader social commitments may face talent problems, especially with younger professionals. At the same time, it shows clear limits to idealism: many respondents across generations would refuse to work for certain sectors such as tobacco, firearms and gambling, with especially strong resistance among Gen Z towards environmentally harmful industries such as mining and oil.

      Taken together, the report’s conclusion is that the future of PR will be shaped by whether older and younger professionals can work across these differences. The authors do not argue that the gaps must disappear. Rather, they argue that the profession must recognise them, understand them and avoid letting established assumptions block adaptation. That is the report’s final message: not that one generation is right and another is wrong, but that the future belongs to those willing to listen across the divide.

    1. World PR Report 2024-2025 by ICCO

      World PR Report 2024-2025 by ICCO

      About the paper

      The report is a global survey-based industry study of agency perspectives on the PR market in 2024–2025, covering growth, talent, AI, measurement, client demands, ethics, and regional differences.

      It is based on an online survey conducted between July and November 2024 among 227 PR professionals across Africa, Asia-Pacific, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, the United Kingdom, North America, Latin America, and the Middle East; some regional sub-samples were under 20, and the report does not clearly specify further methodological details beyond the survey format.

      Length: 47 pages

      More information / download:
      https://iccopr.com/world-pr-reports/

      Core Insights

      1. What is the report’s central argument about the current state of the PR industry?

      The report’s core argument is that PR is entering a decisive period shaped by two simultaneous realities: continued commercial opportunity and rising structural strain. On the one hand, agencies are still broadly optimistic. The report says 67% are optimistic about market growth and 61% expect profitability to rise. On the other hand, that optimism sits alongside budget pressure, economic uncertainty, talent strain, misinformation, and a more politically volatile operating environment.

      What makes the report more than a routine confidence survey is that it frames these pressures as a change in the nature of PR itself. The industry is moving further upstream into higher-value advisory work such as corporate reputation, strategic consulting, and increasingly public affairs. That suggests PR is no longer being defined primarily by media execution, but by its ability to help organisations navigate risk, trust, purpose, regulation, and contested public discourse.

      So the big story is not simply “the industry is growing.” It is that PR is trying to become more strategically indispensable at the same moment that technology, geopolitics, and ethical risk are making that role harder and more consequential.

      2. Where does the report see the strongest commercial growth and investment potential?

      The clearest growth pattern is a shift towards reputation-led and advisory-led work. Globally, the top growth areas over the past year were corporate reputation at 31% and strategic consulting at 28%. Looking ahead, the top expected growth areas are strategic consulting at 38%, corporate reputation at 37%, and public affairs at 23%. The rise of public affairs is especially notable because it suggests clients increasingly need help navigating political and regulatory complexity, not just public messaging.

      By sector, technology is the standout growth engine. It was the biggest growth sector over the past year at 46%, ahead of healthcare at 32% and financial and professional services at 27%. Looking forward, IT and technology remains the leading sector for expected growth at 54%, followed by healthcare at 30% and financial and professional services at 27%.

      Expected investment priorities also reveal something important about how agencies think the market is evolving. ESG leads expected investment at 40%, followed by strategic consulting at 31% and influencer communications at 29%. That mix is striking because it combines boardroom issues, advisory work, and newer influence channels. In other words, agencies appear to be investing both in strategic counsel and in the communication formats needed to activate it.

      Taken together, the report suggests that commercial growth is coming less from traditional media relations and more from helping clients manage reputation, policy exposure, stakeholder trust, and complex social expectations.

      3. How does the report portray AI’s impact on PR, and what does that imply for the profession?

      AI is presented as the single most transformative force in the report. Artificial intelligence is named by 86% of respondents as the most relevant future technology, 74% say their organisations have already integrated AI tools into everyday processes, and 79% believe AI’s impact on the industry will be significant, with a third calling it game-changing. Mastery of AI tools also ranks as the most relevant future skill set for PR executives at 47%, ahead of strategic consulting at 44%.

      But the report does not treat AI simply as a productivity story. It makes a more layered point: AI is likely to reshape both what PR does and how PR proves its value. The biggest expected AI impact area within PR is measurement and analytics at 56%, followed by multimedia content creation and research/insight/planning at 44% each. That means the report sees AI not just as a content engine, but as a tool for analysis, interpretation, and decision support. On page 20, the chart also shows that respondents expect technology to matter most for operating more efficiently, building online communities, and improving employee engagement.

      The implication is quite profound. If AI takes over more routine production and accelerates analysis, then human value in PR shifts further towards judgement, advisory capability, crisis counsel, ethics, and strategic interpretation. The report therefore points towards a profession in which technical fluency with AI becomes necessary, but not sufficient. The real differentiator becomes whether agencies can combine AI-enabled efficiency with trusted human counsel.

      4. What does the report identify as the industry’s biggest weaknesses or unresolved problems?

      The report highlights four interlocking weaknesses: commercial pressure, talent problems, thin progress on measurement maturity, and ethical vulnerability.

      Commercially, the biggest challenge for firms over the next 12 months is clients unwilling to commit sufficient funds at 37%, followed by economic conditions generally at 34% and pressure to meet profit or margin targets at 26%. So even where growth opportunities exist, agencies still face a market that is cost-conscious and demanding.

      On talent, the biggest strategic challenge is retaining key talent at 51%, followed by motivating younger executives at 35% and developing junior and mid-level staff at 33%. The report also notes a decline in perceived talent availability and in the industry’s ability to recruit from outside PR. It argues that this is especially problematic because the fastest-growing sectors, especially technology and healthcare, require specialist knowledge that traditional PR talent pipelines may not supply.

      Measurement is another weak point. Although the report presents some encouraging signs, such as measurement being used for reporting, planning, and decision-making, client demand still appears fairly basic in places. The most likely client requests are media clippings at 52%, engagement metrics at 39%, and AVE at 31%. That continued prominence of AVE suggests that parts of the market still rely on legacy proxies rather than more advanced evaluation approaches. At the same time, only 36% say they use AMEC frequently or sometimes, though Asia-Pacific performs better at 46%.

      Finally, ethics is not presented as a side issue but as a structural problem. Misinformation is the top ethical concern at 40%, lack of consequences for unethical agencies is at 38%, and balancing income with ethics is at 37%. Although 73% say they have turned down a client or job for ethical reasons, only 39% think PR is more ethical than other industries. That contrast suggests a profession that sees itself as trying to behave responsibly, while also recognising that its wider legitimacy remains fragile.

      5. What broader conclusions does the report draw about the future role of PR?

      The report’s broader conclusion is that PR’s future will depend on whether it can become more strategically important without losing ethical credibility. It repeatedly returns to three themes: reputation, responsibility, and reinvention. Clients’ most important objective is proactive corporate reputation at 61%, ahead of increased sales at 46% and crisis management at 37%. That tells us PR is increasingly tied to the stewardship of intangible value, not merely campaign delivery.

      At the same time, the profession’s future role is shown to be inseparable from ethical leadership. The report argues that PR professionals now operate in a world shaped by misinformation, polarisation, geopolitical instability, and AI-enabled content manipulation. In that context, 91% believe agencies have a duty to steer clients away from unethical behaviour. The message is that PR cannot credibly claim a strategic role unless it is also willing to act as a moral and reputational adviser.

      There is also a social dimension to this future role. Clients are most likely to prioritise sustainability and environment at 59%, followed by diversity and social inclusion at 28% and technology empowerment at 25%. That suggests PR’s remit increasingly includes helping organisations communicate around public-interest issues, not just commercial ones.

      So the report’s real conclusion is this: the future of PR will belong to agencies that can combine strategic consulting strength, AI capability, robust measurement, sector expertise, and ethical judgement. It is not a story of simple industry expansion. It is a story of professional upgrading under pressure.

    2. 2025 Comms Report by PRWeek and Cision

      2025 Comms Report by PRWeek and Cision

      About the paper

      The report examines the current state of the PR and communications industry in 2025, with a particular focus on AI adoption, measurement and analytics, content strategy, influencer effectiveness, workforce challenges and C-suite priorities.

      It is based on original survey research: an online survey of 310 senior-level communications and marcomms professionals in the U.S. and Canada, fielded by PRWeek between 18 October and 20 November 2024; the methodology, sample and geography are clearly specified in the report.

      Length: 13 pages

      More information / download:
      https://www.cision.com/resources/guides-and-reports/2025-comms-report/

      Core Insights

      1. What is the report’s central argument about where the communications industry stands in 2025?

      The core argument is that the sector is advancing rather than standing still. The report explicitly frames 2025 as a story of measurable progress, especially in areas that have been recurring concerns since the study began in 2017, such as data, analytics and proving communications’ business value. At the same time, it argues that newer forces, especially generative AI, are now moving from experimentation into active workflow adoption.

      That argument is supported by several headline findings. The report says almost two-thirds of respondents believe generative AI is notably improving their data and analytics capabilities, while only a small minority say AI is not part of their communications strategy at all. It also states that 68% say they now have the tools needed to show the cause-and-effect relationship between communications work and bottom-line objectives. Together, those findings support the report’s broader claim that the industry is becoming more strategic, more data-enabled and more operationally mature.

      The tone is not triumphalist, though. The report still presents communications as a sector under pressure, especially pressure to do more with less, and one that continues to wrestle with reactive ways of working. So the central message is not that the industry has solved its problems, but that it has moved forward in meaningful ways while still facing structural challenges.

      2. What does the report show about AI adoption, and how significant is that shift?

      The report presents AI as the defining new capability story in communications. It says seven new AI-related questions were added this year specifically to capture where the industry now stands, suggesting that PRWeek and Cision see AI as too important to treat as a side issue. According to the findings, 23% say generative AI is used “very much so” in their overall comms strategy and 44% say “somewhat”, while only 9% say “not at all”. The report interprets this as evidence that AI integration has reached an acceleration point.

      The strongest operational uses are practical rather than futuristic. The report says AI is being used most regularly for content review and optimisation, brainstorming campaign ideas, audience targeting and content creation. On page 7, the visual data reinforce this point: content-related tasks stand out as the areas where regular use is highest, and nearly two-thirds of respondents say their company already has an AI policy or strategy in place. That matters because it suggests adoption is becoming formalised, not just improvised at the individual-user level.

      The report also shows that adoption is not limited to using public tools. More than a third of respondents say their organisation has developed at least one proprietary AI tool for internal or client use. Examples include RAG systems for summarising internal IP, insights engines built on large datasets and tools for automating post-meeting outputs. That indicates a shift from experimentation with third-party tools to organisation-specific applications embedded in workflows.

      At the same time, the report does not portray AI adoption as frictionless. Concerns remain about how to communicate AI-driven change to stakeholders, the possibility of budget cuts and job losses, and the risk of marginalising communications’ hard-won “seat at the table”. So the shift is significant, but it is accompanied by uncertainty about governance, role definition and organisational consequences.

      3. How does the report assess progress on data, analytics and measurement?

      This is one of the report’s clearest storylines. It explicitly compares 2025 with the first study in 2017, when 75% of respondents said the sector needed to get better at measuring and proving impact on business objectives. In 2025, by contrast, 68% say they have the necessary tools to demonstrate the cause-and-effect relationship between communications work and bottom-line outcomes. The report presents this as evidence of real progress in the industry’s relationship with measurement.

      The findings on measurement challenges support that interpretation. On page 5, the report shows year-on-year declines across several familiar pain points, including aligning metrics to revenue, converting data into actionable insights, identifying the best tools and reliance on media impressions. The 15-point drop in over-reliance on impressions is singled out as especially noteworthy. The implication is that communications teams are getting better at using more meaningful metrics and better tools.

      The report also connects this progress to stronger organisational legitimacy. It argues that when communications teams can show direct business value, they are better able to win C-suite trust and investment. This is reinforced by the finding that 84% say the C-suite has sought the counsel of the communications team more in the past year than before. In other words, better analytics are not presented merely as a technical improvement; they are framed as part of the reason communications is becoming more influential within organisations.

      Still, the report does not suggest that the measurement issue is settled. “Inability to measure impact effectively” remains one of the top three general challenges, chosen by 37% of respondents on page 10, and content-related measurement problems also remain substantial. So the deeper conclusion is that measurement has improved materially, but it is still unfinished business.

      4. What changing patterns does the report identify in influence, content and communications practice?

      One of the most striking shifts concerns influence. For the first time in the study’s eight-year history, employees rank as the most effective influencer type, edging out everyday consumers and clearly surpassing celebrities. The report treats this as a major reversal from 2017, when celebrities led and employees ranked last. On page 9, the chart shows employees in first place overall and also leading in sectors such as financial services and healthcare/pharmaceutical.

      The interpretation offered is that employee voices are seen as more authentic and credible than paid celebrity endorsements. The report links this shift to social media visibility and trust, arguing that employees can function as a brand’s most believable advocates when activated respectfully and authentically. It also notes that niche influencers appear to have more persuasive power than macro or micro influencers among dedicated social-media-based categories.

      In content and channel strategy, the report finds more continuity than disruption. Earned media remains the most relied-on part of the media mix, but the gap between earned and paid has narrowed. The most effective content types and social platforms remain broadly the same as last year, with branded social media, websites, Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn all remaining prominent. However, the report highlights LinkedIn’s continued importance and notes that comments and shares have become particularly significant social metrics. These patterns suggest that while communications is changing technologically, many core distribution and engagement priorities remain familiar.

      There is also a workforce and organisational practice dimension. Team access to dedicated data analysts has risen, team size among non-agency respondents is up, and confidence in crisis preparedness is high. Meanwhile, work arrangements show a modest movement back toward the office, with fully in-office work rising year on year. So the report captures change not only in tools and tactics, but also in how comms teams are structured and how they operate.

      5. What are the report’s main implications for communications leaders and for the future of the profession?

      The clearest implication is that communications leaders are expected to be both more strategic and more commercially relevant. On page 11, the report shows that respondents think CEOs’ top priorities are strongly tied to growth, value, agility and revenue. That means communicators are being measured not just on storytelling or visibility, but on their contribution to wider business performance. The report also shows that respondents’ own top priorities include analytics and reporting, content creation, media and influencer management, and customer acquisition or engagement.

      A second implication is that the profession is entering a more hybrid model of value creation: part human judgement, part AI-enabled execution, part data-driven proof. The report repeatedly suggests that AI is most useful when it accelerates repeatable tasks, strengthens insight generation and frees communicators to focus on higher-value strategic and relational work. This implies that future advantage will not come from using AI in a generic way, but from combining it with strong prompting skills, good data infrastructure, human interpretation and organisational trust.

      A third implication is that communications still needs to become less reactive. The single most cited general challenge is “a focus that is too reactive, as opposed to proactive”. That is important because it suggests the profession’s next leap forward is not only about tools, but about operating model and influence: being earlier in decision-making, better aligned internally and more capable of shaping action rather than merely responding to events.

      Overall, the report’s conclusion is cautiously optimistic. It portrays a profession that is more confident, better equipped and more respected than before, but still under pressure to prove value, adapt to rapid technological change and work across organisational boundaries. That makes the report less a celebration than a status check: communications has advanced, but future credibility will depend on turning AI, analytics and authenticity into sustained strategic advantage.

    3. Employee Communications Report 2025 Global Edition by Gallagher

      Employee Communications Report 2025 Global Edition by Gallagher

      About the paper

      The report is a mixed-methods industry report on the state of internal communication and employee experience, focusing on communicator performance, purpose, measurement, relationships, channels, AI, change and wellbeing.

      It combines 2,000+ survey responses with qualitative input from a steering committee of 8, a dashboard discussion group of 20, and six focus groups involving 37 attendees; fieldwork ran between August and December 2024, with the survey itself conducted from October to November 2024.

      The data is global in scope, covering 55 countries, though the respondent base is weighted towards North America, the UK and Europe.

      Length: 40 pages

      More information / download:
      https://www.ajg.com/employeeexperience/state-of-the-sector/

      Core Insights

      1. What is the report’s main argument about what makes internal communicators successful in 2025?

      The central argument is that communicator success is shaped less by sheer effort or tactical busyness and more by two reinforcing capabilities: using data well and building productive relationships across the organisation. The report states this explicitly in both the introduction and conclusion, arguing that the communicators who perform best are those who can collect, synthesise and apply data tied to business impact, while also maintaining strong cross-functional and leadership relationships.

      That argument is strengthened by the report’s “communicator profiles”: Survivors, Strivers and Thrivers. Thrivers stand out because they score better on KPI performance, confidence, relationship quality, purpose progress and data effectiveness. They are described as aligned, future-focused and consistently able to exceed targets, whereas Survivors tend to operate reactively in poor conditions with weak structures and limited room for growth.

      The report therefore presents success not as a matter of output volume, but as a matter of operating model. Thrivers spend more time on architectural work such as strategy, planning and leadership support, while Survivors spend more time on administration and reactive tactical work. In effect, the report says that the strongest communicators are not simply producing more content; they are better positioned to shape decisions, interpret evidence and influence the business.

      2. How do communicators currently define their purpose, and where is the biggest tension in that purpose?

      The report finds that the top three purposes of internal communication in 2025 are strategic alignment, culture and belonging, and organisational agility. In other words, communicators see their role as helping employees understand the business direction, feel part of the organisation, and adapt to change. Employee listening ranks just outside the top three, but the report treats it as a critical enabling function running through all of them.

      The biggest tension is what the report calls the “purpose vs. perception paradox”. Unlike finance or operations, communications does not have a universally fixed, easily understood mandate. That flexibility can be useful because the function can adapt to business needs, but it also creates risk: when communicators have to define their own purpose rather than receiving a clear top-down mandate, the function may be seen as less indispensable. The report suggests this ambiguity contributes to scope creep and weakens the perceived strategic standing of communication.

      There is also a notable performance gap hidden inside the purpose data. Around two in three respondents are satisfied with progress on strategic alignment and culture and belonging, but satisfaction is far lower on areas such as employee listening and organisational agility. The report notes a roughly 50-point gap between Thrivers and Survivors on progress in the top-ranked purpose areas. So the issue is not only defining purpose, but converting stated purpose into actual progress.

      3. What barriers are most undermining communicator performance, and what do they reveal about the organisational environment?

      The top barriers for 2025 are lack of time and capacity, change fatigue, poor people-manager communication, lack of clear direction from the top, and poor leadership communication. These barriers point to a communications environment under strain, where the problem is not simply channel overload or lack of tools, but wider organisational conditions: too much change, too little clarity, and too much dependence on leaders and managers who are not consistently effective communicators.

      The report goes further by showing that the most damaging blockers are all closely tied to leadership and organisational power.

      The five barriers that most strongly depress communicator confidence are:

      • lack of involvement in decision-making
      • lack of clear direction from the top
      • lack of analytics and measurement
      • lack of involvement in change management
      • and lack of support from senior leaders.

      In other words, communicators struggle most when they are excluded from strategy, lack evidence, or are expected to execute without influence.

      Change fatigue is especially important. It is a new entry in the barrier list yet immediately becomes one of the most significant. The report argues that employees are dealing not just with external uncertainty but with multiple internal change initiatives, often poorly coordinated. Communicators describe a situation where leaders push messages because they feel they are important, without enough attention to what employees actually need to know. That reveals an environment of change saturation rather than disciplined transformation.

      4. What does the report show about measurement, data and cross-functional relationships as drivers of impact?

      One of the report’s strongest themes is that communicator impact depends on both measurement capability and relationship quality. The average communicator is accountable for seven KPIs, most of them shared with other departments, especially HR and the C-suite. That means internal communication rarely “owns” success alone; it operates through joint accountability.

      However, the report also finds a gap between accountability and actual measurement. For instance, while 92% of respondents have some accountability for employee engagement, only 71% regularly monitor it. Likewise, 56% are accountable for employee retention, but only 40% track it as a business metric. This suggests that communicators are often held responsible for outcomes they do not consistently measure, access, or interpret well enough.

      At the same time, the report shows that using data well is closely associated with better outcomes. Communicators who exceed targets are more likely to use data to understand communication effectiveness, inform tactics, evaluate tactics, demonstrate value and shape content decisions. Thrivers are especially strong here, and the report links their success not only to data usage itself but to their ability to connect that data to leadership priorities.

      Relationships are the second half of the equation. Collaborative relationships with HR and the C-suite correlate positively with data use, KPI performance and satisfaction with progress toward purpose. The report is particularly emphatic about the C-suite: communicators with collaborative leadership relationships are more satisfied with progress, more likely to meet or exceed targets, and even show markedly better wellbeing. So data and relationships are not separate findings; they work together as the mechanism through which communicators gain influence and prove value.

      5. What practical implications does the report draw for communicators and organisations heading into 2025?

      The report’s practical conclusion is that communicators need to shift attention from reactive busyness towards strategic capability-building. It recommends clarifying and leadership-aligning the purpose of communication, learning the basics of change management, improving meeting discipline, strengthening visibility with leaders, and building stronger data literacy, especially the non-technical side such as critical thinking, communication and business acumen.

      For organisations, the implication is that communication cannot be treated as a tactical support service if better employee outcomes are expected. The report shows that communicators are often under pressure from constant change, blurred remits and limited resources, while also being asked to support AI adoption, leadership communication and employee listening. If businesses want better results, they need to invest in the function not only with tools and budgets, but with clearer direction, stronger inclusion in decision-making and better cross-functional coordination.

      The AI findings sharpen this point. While maturity has improved somewhat, 38% say there is no AI governance or guidance in place, and many communicators have not decided how transparent they should be about AI use. The report treats this as a strategic risk, not just a tooling issue, because communicators are expected to help shape employee attitudes to AI while lacking organisational clarity themselves.

      Taken together, the report’s practical message is quite clear: in 2025, successful communication functions will be those that can translate evidence into business language, build strong stakeholder coalitions, and impose more clarity on environments marked by overload, ambiguity and continual change.

    4. Global Foresight 2025 by the Atlantic Council

      Global Foresight 2025 by the Atlantic Council

      About the paper

      The report is a mixed-methods foresight study on what the world may look like in 2035, combining an expert survey, short horizon-scanning essays on six under-the-radar “snow leopards,” and three written future scenarios.

      The original research element is a survey of 357 geostrategists and foresight practitioners drawn from the Atlantic Council’s networks, fielded in late November and early December 2024, with respondents spread across sixty countries plus the United States and representing every continent except Antarctica; the survey sample, however, skewed US-based, male, and older.

      Length: 84 pages

      More information / download:
      https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/content-series/atlantic-council-strategy-paper-series/global-foresight-2025/

      Core Insights

      1. What overall picture of the world in 2035 does the report present?

      The report presents a distinctly darker-than-light global outlook. Its central message is that many leading strategists expect the next decade to be shaped less by steady progress than by heightened instability, strategic rivalry, institutional weakness, and accumulating systemic risks. The report explicitly says that 62 percent of respondents think the world in ten years will be worse off than today, while only 38 percent think it will be better off.

      That pessimism is not absolute. The report notes some areas of guarded optimism, especially around artificial intelligence and climate cooperation. A majority of respondents think AI will have a net positive impact on global affairs over the next decade, and about half foresee expanded cooperation on climate change. But those brighter notes are outweighed by broader anxiety about war, nuclear risk, democratic decline, and geopolitical fragmentation.

      Structurally, the report is trying to do more than predict single outcomes. It says foresight cannot provide certainty, but it can help readers understand the forces already driving change and the possible consequences of those forces over the coming decade and beyond. That framing matters: this is not a forecast claiming “this will happen,” but an effort to map where expert opinion sees the heaviest risks and most consequential uncertainties.

      So the overall picture is of a world entering 2035 under pressure from several overlapping dynamics at once:

      • hard-power rivalry
      • erosion of the postwar order
      • weak prospects for conflict resolution
      • technological disruption
      • and climate-linked stress.

      The report’s worldview is therefore not just pessimistic but systemic: it suggests that multiple domains of instability are reinforcing each other.

      2. Which geopolitical and security risks do surveyed experts see as most likely to shape the next decade?

      The headline risk is major war. The report’s most striking finding is that 40 percent of respondents expect another world war by 2035, defined as a multifront conflict among great powers. It adds that this war could go nuclear and could extend into space, with 48 percent expecting nuclear weapons to be used by at least one actor in the coming decade and 45 percent expecting direct military conflict in space.

      The report identifies China and Russia as the main vectors through which a broader conflict could emerge. On China, 65 percent of respondents think Beijing will try to retake Taiwan by force within the next decade, a sharp rise from the previous year’s survey. On Russia, 45 percent think Russia and NATO will engage in direct military conflict, also a significant increase year-on-year. In other words, the report suggests that expert concern is moving away from abstract rivalry and toward concrete expectations of military confrontation.

      Another major concern is bloc formation. Just under half of respondents expect China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea to become formal allies by 2035, and many foresee a world divided into China-aligned and US-aligned blocs. The report treats this as a potentially war-amplifying trend rather than merely a diplomatic realignment. Respondents who foresaw both bloc division and formal alliance-building were much more likely also to expect world war.

      Nuclear proliferation is another core risk. The report says 88 percent of respondents expect at least one new country to obtain nuclear weapons in the next decade. Iran is by far the most cited likely new nuclear power, but expectations also rose for South Korea, Saudi Arabia, and Japan. On use, Russia and North Korea are seen as the most likely current nuclear powers to launch a nuclear strike.

      The report also shows pessimism about existing conflicts. On Ukraine, only 4 percent think the war will end on terms largely favourable to Ukraine; most expect either terms favourable to Russia or a frozen conflict. On the Middle East, respondents are much more optimistic about Israeli-Saudi normalisation than about Israeli-Palestinian peace. More than 60 percent expect the current status quo of occupied Palestinian territories to persist by 2035.

      Taken together, these findings suggest the report sees the coming decade as one in which escalation risks are rising across several theatres at once, while the mechanisms for resolving those conflicts appear weak.

      3. How does the report assess the future of US power, alliances, multilateral institutions, and democracy?

      The report’s view of the United States is nuanced: it still sees the US as the likeliest dominant military power in 2035, but a weaker and more uncertain leader in other domains. Seventy-one percent of respondents expect the US to remain militarily dominant, and 58 percent still see it as the leading technological innovator. But fewer expect it to dominate economically, diplomatically, or in soft power, and confidence has dropped across several of these measures compared with the previous year.

      That matters because the report implies that US power is increasingly relative rather than comprehensive. It is not presenting a picture of outright American collapse, but of a more limited United States operating in a multipolar world. Three-quarters of respondents expect the world in 2035 to be multipolar, with multiple centres of power.

      Alliances remain part of that picture, but with more uncertainty than before. A majority still expect the US to maintain its alliance network in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, yet this figure fell sharply from the previous survey. At the same time, almost half expect Europe to achieve greater “strategic autonomy” by taking more responsibility for its own security. So the report suggests a future in which alliances may persist, but under new terms and with more burden-sharing or hedging.

      On multilateral institutions, the mood is much grimmer. Large majorities expect the United Nations, the UN Security Council, and the World Trade Organization to be less capable of solving problems by 2035 than they are today. The World Bank and IMF fare somewhat better, while respondents are relatively more hopeful about regional groupings such as ASEAN, the EU, and even BRICS. That pattern reveals an important assumption in the report: global governance is likely to weaken, while regional or alternative formations may gain relative importance.

      The report is similarly downbeat on democracy. Nearly half of respondents think today’s democratic recession will worsen into a democratic depression by 2035, while only 17 percent foresee a democratic renaissance. It also says 65 percent expect global press freedom to decrease. So the report does not treat democratic backsliding as a side issue; it sees it as one of the defining trends of the next decade.

      There is also a gender dimension to that pessimism. Women in the survey were more negative than men across several questions, especially about nuclear use, democratic decline, rights curtailment, and future US dominance. The report interprets this as reflecting persistent inequalities and the unequal burden crises place on women.

      4. What overlooked “snow leopards” does the report argue could have outsized future impact?

      One of the report’s most distinctive features is its “snow leopards” section: six under-the-radar developments that may not dominate headlines now but could become highly consequential. This is the horizon-scanning part of the report, and it broadens the analysis beyond headline geopolitics.

      1.The first is the threat that non-state actors could attack undersea cables.

      The report argues that the global digital and financial system depends heavily on these cables and that they are vulnerable not only to states but also to militant groups or terrorists. Its core point is that a relatively low-cost attack on critical subsea infrastructure could produce outsized disruption across communications, finance, and military operations.

      2. The second is enhanced geothermal systems.

      The report presents this as a low-carbon energy source with major underexploited potential, noting that if technological and cost barriers fall, it could become a significant contributor to electricity generation in the United States. This is framed not merely as a climate story but as a strategic energy-development story.

      3. The third is a new carbon-capture material, COF-999, described as a yellow powder that could dramatically reduce the cost and resource intensity of pulling carbon dioxide from the air.

      The report does not claim this solves climate change, but it treats the discovery as an example of the sort of scientific breakthrough that could shift the economics of mitigation.

      4. The fourth is rewilding.

      Here the report argues that land abandonment, urbanisation, changing food systems, and ecological restoration could together make much more land available for rewilding, with implications for biodiversity, carbon capture, tourism, and land use. It also notes trade-offs and possible backlash, so this is presented as a consequential but contested trend.

      5. The fifth is quantum batteries.

      The report uses this as an example of a frontier technology that may transform energy storage, with particular attention to medical devices, emergency systems, and electric mobility. The point is not that the technology is ready now, but that its eventual impact could be large if the science translates into scalable applications.

      6. The sixth is Gen Z’s vulnerability to misinformation.

      This may be the most sociologically revealing of the snow leopards. The report challenges the assumption that digital natives are naturally better at navigating false information, arguing instead that heavy social media exposure, algorithmic feeds, parasocial influence, and weak verification habits may leave this generation especially susceptible. The long-term implication is that future elites may enter positions of power with distorted information habits and weaker trust.

      Across all six, the deeper message is that the future will not be shaped only by visible great-power rivalry. It may also be shaped by overlooked vulnerabilities, scientific breakthroughs, and social shifts that sit below the surface until they suddenly matter.

      5. What do the report’s three scenarios suggest about the range of possible global futures—and what is the report ultimately trying to make readers understand?

      The report ends with three scenarios for 2035:

      1. “The reluctant international order”
      2. “China ascendant”
      3. and “Climate of fear.”

      These are explicitly presented not as predictions but as plausible futures designed to stimulate thinking. That distinction is crucial. The scenarios are a tool for exploring interaction effects between present-day trends, not for declaring which future is most likely.

      “The reluctant international order” imagines a world in which the rules-based international order has neither collapsed nor been revitalised. Cooperation persists because major powers and non-state actors still need it, even if they engage reluctantly and pragmatically. This scenario suggests that messy, improvised, partial cooperation may be more realistic than either liberal renewal or total breakdown.

      “China ascendant” imagines a world in which Beijing becomes the dominant global power, not through one dramatic rupture but through a slow shift enabled by US inwardness, economic influence, institutional repositioning, and strategic patience. The point here is that geopolitical transformation need not come through open war; it can happen gradually through hedging, institutional drift, and changing perceptions of who is reliable and effective.

      “Climate of fear” imagines a world where worsening climate instability drives migration, political conflict, democratic stress, and escalating interest in radical responses such as geoengineering. This scenario shows the report’s assumption that climate change is not just an environmental issue but a force multiplier affecting politics, conflict, mobility, governance, and public fear.

      Taken together, the three scenarios reveal the report’s deeper purpose. It is not merely asking, “What will happen?” It is asking readers to think about how today’s choices, vulnerabilities, and neglected signals can combine into very different but still plausible futures. That is why the report mixes survey data, horizon scanning, and narrative scenarios. It wants to move the reader from passive consumption of trends to active strategic imagination.

      The underlying perspective is clear: the future is not predetermined, but it is being shaped now by decisions on deterrence, alliance maintenance, institutional reform, climate action, technology governance, and democratic resilience. The report’s central implication is therefore strategic rather than descriptive: if leaders fail to act early on compounding risks, the darker futures it sketches become more plausible.

    5. FGS Global Radar 2025: The Year of Consequences by FGS

      FGS Global Radar 2025: The Year of Consequences by FGS

      About the paper

      The report is a mixed-methods outlook on the political, economic, technological, climate and workplace consequences likely to shape 2025, with a strong emphasis on what those shifts mean for business.

      It combines 70 individual depth interviews with senior stakeholders across business, politics, media, finance and academia, conducted in October and November 2024, with a nationally representative UK poll of 2,084 adults fielded from 15–17 November 2024; the primary geographic scope is the UK, although the analysis addresses global developments, especially the US and Europe.

      Length: 25 pages

      More information / download:
      https://a.storyblok.com/f/137553/x/493262557e/fgs-global-radar-2025_the-year-of-consequences.pdf

      Core Insights

      1. What is the report’s central argument about 2025, and why does it call it “the year of consequences”?

      The core claim is that 2025 is not presented as a year of entirely new issues, but as the year in which the consequences of recent political shocks, especially the 2024 election cycle and above all Donald Trump’s return, begin to bite. The report argues that many of the underlying challenges remain the same, but the language, political framing and practical terms of engagement around them are changing. In that sense, 2025 is portrayed as a year of disruption, reframing and forced clarity rather than simple continuity.

      The report roots this in a broader anti-incumbent mood across developed Western economies. It argues that falling living standards, inflation and concern over immigration helped drive voters away from established governments. Trump is treated as the most consequential manifestation of that trend, with likely spillover effects across geopolitics, sustainability, AI, business and culture.

      At the same time, the report is not wholly apocalyptic. It repeatedly stages a tension between pessimists and pragmatists, or between gloom and opportunity. Its final position is that 2025 will be dangerous and unstable, but that it may also create openings for decision-making, innovation and strategic repositioning. That balanced but business-oriented framing is central to the report’s purpose.

      2. How does the report think Trump’s return will reshape the global environment for politics and business?

      Trump is the organising force of the report. The authors state bluntly that “2025 will be the year of Trump”, and the expert consensus presented is that he should be taken more seriously this time because he now has more experience, stronger intent and a limited window in which to act. The report expects an early phase of “shock and awe”, including executive action on tariffs, deregulation, immigration and geopolitical positioning.

      Economically, the report expects Trump to push tax cuts and deregulation, with many experts anticipating a short-term US boom that could also buoy global dealmaking and M&A. But it also records a counter-view: that tariffs, labour restrictions and fiscal loosening may later fuel inflation and possibly trigger conflict with the Federal Reserve. So the outlook is not one of settled optimism, but of a potentially powerful near-term stimulus coupled with medium-term instability.

      Geopolitically, the report suggests Trump’s foreign policy is harder to predict because international order is not seen as his main priority. It outlines fears that support for NATO, Ukraine and multilateral institutions could weaken, while authoritarian states may feel emboldened. It also expects pressure on Ukraine to accept a deal, sympathy towards Netanyahu, and renewed tension around Taiwan. At the same time, some interviewees think Trump’s disruptive style might break deadlock in stalled conflicts. That split between alarm and reluctant pragmatism is one of the report’s recurring patterns.

      3. What does the report say about the state of democracy, public trust and mainstream politics, especially in the UK and Europe?

      A major theme is that democratic systems are under strain because governments are struggling to bridge the gap between what they promise and what they can actually deliver. The report links this to structural pressures such as debt, ageing populations, infrastructure needs, weak growth and immigration tensions, especially in Europe. It argues that this mismatch is eroding faith in liberal democracy and creating fertile ground for populism.

      The UK polling evidence is used to illustrate this erosion. The report says 24% of the UK electorate now believes that voting does not make a difference, while nearly eight in ten voters think they are entitled to expect more from government. Particularly striking is the finding that more than one in five people under 45 agree that the best system for running a country effectively is a strong leader who does not have to bother with elections. The report reads this as a serious warning sign about younger adults’ confidence in democratic delivery.

      On the UK specifically, Labour is portrayed as politically dominant but strategically unclear. The report says business and even Labour supporters see a lack of compelling growth narrative, while public confidence is weak: only 13% think the government has a clear and convincing plan for stronger growth, only 11% think it is doing what they hoped, 64% think the UK is in steep decline, and 68% believe Labour will increase their taxes. So the report’s view is that stability of parliamentary control does not equal public confidence or strategic clarity.

      4. What picture does the report paint of AI, climate and business opportunity in 2025?

      The report treats AI as both transformative and unsettled. It emphasises the extraordinary scale of investment, including a cited $1 trillion being spent on AI data centres, and argues that while many firms are still struggling to turn proof-of-concept work into real competitive advantage, most experts believe the technology will prove genuinely transformative over time. It suggests that the biggest near-term gains may come not from science-fiction breakthroughs, but from practical uses that improve productivity, speed up processes and reduce backlogs in functions such as marketing, communications and public services.

      But the public mood is far more divided. The report says opinion splits almost exactly into thirds: those who fear AI could control humans, those who think it will positively transform lives, and those who think it is overhyped. It also notes public scepticism about concrete benefits: only 39% expect positive effects on healthcare and life expectancy, 38% on productivity, and just 17% on their own standard of living, while 50% fear negative effects on job opportunities. The report therefore positions AI as a field where elite and public sentiment have not yet converged.

      On climate, the report argues that international diplomacy has weakened, especially because of Trump and the disappointing COP29 outcome, yet it also sees real momentum in the economics of transition. Its key argument is that sustainability will progress less through idealistic global cooperation and more through energy security, cost competitiveness and industrial advantage. In other words, the report believes the climate narrative is shifting from moral exhortation to transactional self-interest.

      That argument is reinforced by polling. Majorities believe climate science and think action is necessary, but many also want a slower pace to reduce cost burdens, and 45% say there is little point in costly UK action unless larger countries do more. So the report’s broader conclusion is that both AI and climate will move forward in 2025, but under more pragmatic, contested and economically framed conditions than before.

      5. What does the report conclude about workplace culture, generational divides and the implications for business leaders?

      The workplace section suggests that culture debates will remain intense, but the report’s own evidence points to a fairly practical hierarchy of employee priorities. In its UK poll, the top three features of an ideal workplace culture are flexible working hours, trust in leadership, and support for employee wellbeing and mental health. That is notable because it places everyday working conditions and leadership credibility above more symbolic or ideological culture-war themes.

      The report argues that hybrid work is still durable, but that employers will become more assertive about office attendance, with three-day minimum expectations likely to spread. It also says mental health will become even more strategically important because of its effect on absenteeism, wellbeing and retention. By contrast, DEI remains in place but is expected to be discussed less publicly and in less politicised language, especially in the wake of Trump’s return. The report also finds that DEI-related factors rank relatively low in the public’s list of workplace culture priorities.

      Generational differences are another major finding. The report shows sharp age-based divides on asylum, free speech, gender identity, China, EU relations and views of intergenerational fairness. But it also complicates the cliché of a simple youth-versus-age split by showing that preferences are more situational: for example, flexible working matters most to those in mid-career and to women, while views on resilience, authority and fairness vary in more layered ways.

      For business leaders, the implication is clear: broad-brush assumptions about “what younger people want” are not enough. The report points instead towards a need for clearer leadership, more explicit explanations of workplace expectations, greater care around employee wellbeing, and more disciplined choices about when companies comment publicly on social or geopolitical issues. Overall, it recommends a more grounded, less performative model of corporate culture.

      Overall, the report is best read as a business-facing synthesis of elite interviews and UK public opinion that argues 2025 will be shaped by disruption, reduced ideological certainty and more transactional politics. Its message is that leaders should prepare for volatility, but also for openings created by clearer power structures, technological progress and a more hard-headed operating environment.

    6. C-suite Outlook 2025 – Delivering Value in a Volatile World by the Weber Shandwick Collective

      C-suite Outlook 2025 – Delivering Value in a Volatile World by the Weber Shandwick Collective

      About the paper

      The report examines how global C-suite leaders are thinking about value creation, stakeholder priorities and volatility in 2025.

      It is based on original survey research: a short survey of 200 private-sector global business leaders from multinational companies operating across North America, Latin America, EMEA and APAC, with fieldwork conducted from 14 November to 4 December 2024.

      The sample includes companies headquartered in the United States and 22 other countries across five sectors, so the geographic scope is global, although the report presents only limited methodological detail beyond the sample profile.

      Length: 9 pages

      More information / download:
      https://webershandwick.com/news/delivering-value-in-volatile-world

      Core Insights

      1. What is the report’s central argument about leadership in 2025?

      The core argument is that CEOs and senior executives are entering 2025 with underlying optimism, but that optimism is tempered by a strong sense that the external environment remains unstable and difficult to control. On page 2, the report frames this tension directly: business leaders see relative macroeconomic stability compared with recent years, yet they remain highly alert to geopolitical disruption, market shocks, activism, policy change and other forces that can quickly alter the operating environment.

      From that starting point, the report argues that corporate leadership now has to move beyond older, more polarised debates about shareholder primacy versus stakeholder capitalism. Its preferred framing is practical rather than ideological: the job of leadership is to define and deliver the specific mix of value that matters most to the stakeholders who shape the company’s success. In other words, the corporation’s role is presented not as serving one constituency at the expense of others, but as earning legitimacy and performance by managing a company-specific “value equation” across multiple stakeholder groups. This is the report’s main conceptual move, and it underpins everything that follows.

      2. How do executives define “value”, and which forms of value matter most to them?

      A major contribution of the report is that it treats value as multi-dimensional rather than purely financial. On page 4, executives rank five forms of value: economic value is highest at 98% importance, followed by functional value at 96%, ethical value at 88%, and both emotional and societal value at 78%. When respondents were asked to allocate relative weight across these categories, economic value received the largest share by far at 41%, compared with 24% for functional value, 14% for ethical value, 11% for societal value and 10% for emotional value.

      That ranking shows two things at once. First, the report does not pretend that executives have become post-financial or post-commercial. Economic performance remains dominant. Secondly, it suggests that modern business leadership increasingly sees non-financial forms of value as part of business success rather than as optional extras. Ethical, societal and emotional value are not leading priorities, but they are still recognised by substantial majorities as important. The report therefore presents a broadened model of business value: financial performance sits at the centre, but it is strengthened or undermined by how companies function, behave and relate to stakeholders.

      There is, however, an interesting gap between aspiration and performance. The page 4 chart on how well companies are delivering value across stakeholders shows strong perceived delivery on economic and functional value, but weaker performance on societal and especially emotional value. Fewer than a quarter say they are delivering societal or emotional value “very well”. So the report implies that executives recognise a wider value agenda more readily than they currently execute it.

      3. Which stakeholders matter most in executive decision-making, and what does that reveal about the report’s perspective?

      The report makes clear that stakeholder thinking is now mainstream among the leaders surveyed. On page 3, 99% say that considering the interests of multiple stakeholders is important. But the stakeholder model being described is not flat or equal. On page 5, customers rank first, with 99% saying they are important and 86% calling them very important. Investors and shareholders follow at 96%, and employees at 93%. Policymakers and government officials come next at 81%, with partners and suppliers and local communities both at 79%. Advocacy groups and non-profits rank much lower.

      This hierarchy matters because it reveals the report’s practical worldview. It is not arguing that all stakeholders should be treated identically, nor that external advocacy pressure should dominate corporate decisions. Instead, it suggests a prioritised stakeholder model centred on those groups most directly tied to performance, legitimacy and licence to operate: customers, capital providers, employees, regulators and key operational partners. That is a more managerial and strategic version of stakeholder capitalism than a purely normative one.

      The report also subtly signals that stakeholder management is becoming more political. The relatively high ranking of policymakers and government officials, combined with repeated references later in the report to regulation, geopolitics and public affairs, suggests that public policy is no longer a peripheral concern. It is becoming structurally central to the executive agenda, especially in a world where policy decisions can affect supply chains, investment flows, reputation and growth.

      4. What does the research say about volatility, preparedness and growth prospects for 2025?

      The report’s most important empirical message is that leaders feel materially less prepared for the kinds of disruptions they cannot control directly. On page 5, executives report greater confidence in handling internal or more familiar reputational threats, such as a major data breach, a company security threat, a health epidemic or a product recall. But preparedness drops sharply for external shocks such as global armed conflicts, terrorist attacks, political division after US elections, misinformation campaigns, natural disasters and actions by elected officials. This distinction is central: leaders are more comfortable with operational crises than with systemic volatility.

      That matters because the report links growth prospects to the ability to deliver value under pressure. On page 6, only 17% of companies are described as in “high growth”, while 63% report moderate growth and 21% expect moderate or high contraction. Eight in ten companies therefore expect at least moderate growth, but the standout point is not exuberance. It is restraint. The report presents 2025 as a year of cautious forward movement rather than broad-based acceleration.

      The priority data reinforces that interpretation. Revenue growth and profitability top the list of business priorities, but leaders also rank managing market volatility, investor expectations, business transformation, culture and workforce capability very highly. On page 7, the actions executives say they are taking include growing the business, launching products, adjusting governance structures, navigating AI, diversifying supply chains and responding more actively to policy and regulatory issues. So the report portrays growth not as a return to normal expansion, but as something that must be actively defended and engineered amid instability.

      5. What are the report’s implications for communication and public affairs teams?

      The clearest implication is that corporate communications and public affairs functions are becoming more strategically important, but many organisations are not yet confident that those teams are equipped for the task. On page 7, only 17% of executives say their communications and public affairs functions are “well equipped” to keep pace with rapid change, while 13% say their confidence in those functions has decreased. The report therefore identifies a capability gap at exactly the point where volatility makes communication, public affairs and reputation management more consequential.

      The practical implications are spelled out most fully on page 8 in the “new rules” section. The report argues that value creation must start at the top, that CEOs need to prepare now for future volatility, that organisations must actively manage controllable volatility such as mis- and disinformation, that AI should support decision-making, and that the policy environment will become more demanding in 2025. In effect, communications is being repositioned from a downstream messaging function to an upstream strategic capability that helps leadership sense, interpret and respond to threats and expectations.

      For a communications reader, the most significant underlying message is this: communicators are not merely being asked to explain value after the fact. They are increasingly expected to help organisations define value, map stakeholder expectations, detect volatility early, prepare response systems, and support CEO judgement in real time. At the same time, the report suggests that many firms have not yet invested enough in these capabilities. So its conclusion is both elevating and cautionary: communications teams are needed more than ever, but they must upskill and become more operationally strategic if they are to meet the expectations being placed on them.

      One caution is worth noting. Because the report is based on a relatively short survey of 200 leaders and is presented in a highly synthesised, infographic-style format, it is better read as a directional executive sentiment study than as a deeply elaborated academic analysis. Even so, it offers a clear and useful picture of how senior leaders are framing the challenge of 2025: deliver growth and stakeholder value, but do so in a world where volatility is persistent, political and increasingly external to managerial control.

    7. 2025 Edelman Trust Barometer by Edelman

      2025 Edelman Trust Barometer by Edelman

      About the paper

      The report is an original research study based on Edelman’s 25th annual online survey of the general population, examining global trust and what it calls a growing “crisis of grievance”.

      Fieldwork ran from 25 October to 16 November 2024 across 28 countries, with more than 33,000 respondents in total and country samples ranging from 1,150 to 2,124; the geographic scope is global, spanning markets in North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia, the Middle East and Africa.

      The methodology is clearly stated, though some analyses exclude certain countries or rely on adjustments because of question sensitivity or translation issues, and the report notes that in lower-internet-penetration countries the online sample may skew younger, more urban and more affluent.

      Length: 78 pages

      More information / download:
      https://www.edelman.com/trust/2025/trust-barometer

      Core Insights

      1. What is the central argument of the 2025 Edelman Trust Barometer?

      The report’s core argument is that a long run of institutional failures has produced not just scepticism, but a deeper and more combustible public mood: grievance. Edelman’s framing is that trust is no longer the only issue. The bigger problem is that many people now feel that business, government and the wealthy operate for the benefit of a select few, while ordinary people bear the costs. That sense of unfairness is presented as the defining context for public trust in 2025.

      The report argues that this grievance mindset has material consequences. It erodes trust across institutions, darkens expectations for the future, increases acceptance of zero-sum thinking, and creates a harsher environment for leadership, public discourse and social cohesion. Its conclusion is that the challenge is not merely reputational. It is social, economic and political: when people believe the system is rigged, trust falls, optimism fades and conflict becomes easier to justify.

      2. What evidence does the report present that trust is fragile and that grievance is widespread?

      Several findings build that case. Globally, the overall Trust Index is flat at 56, and the report’s headline on page 6 is that elections failed to improve trust. Among the 13 countries with national elections or leadership changes in the relevant period, only Argentina and South Africa saw significant trust gains. That supports Edelman’s view that political turnover by itself is not fixing the underlying problem.

      The report also shows a broad climate of anxiety and disillusionment. Job insecurity fears rose across every threat measured, including recession, trade conflict, automation and lack of training. Employer trust, which had long been a relative bright spot, fell by 3 points globally to 75, which the report describes as an unprecedented global decline. Only 36% say the next generation will be better off, and in most developed countries fewer than one in five believe that. Fear of experiencing prejudice, discrimination or racism rose to an all-time high of 63 globally, up 10 points from 2024 in the countries tracked for that measure.

      Most importantly, grievance itself is widespread. The report says 61% have a moderate or high sense of grievance against business, government and the rich, and majorities reach that level in 23 of the 26 countries included in the grievance analysis. High grievance is also linked to a far stronger zero-sum outlook: 53% of those with high grievance believe that what helps people with different politics comes at a cost to them, versus 23% among those with low grievance.

      3. How does grievance reshape trust in institutions, leaders and technology?

      This is where the report becomes especially sharp. Among people with low grievance, business, government, NGOs and media all sit in either trust or near-trust territory. Among those with high grievance, all four are distrusted: business falls to 42, government to 25, NGOs to 45 and media to 34. In other words, grievance does not just lower trust a little; it imposes a full-spectrum trust penalty.

      The same pattern appears with business leaders and artificial intelligence. Trust in CEOs in general drops from 64 among those with low grievance to 30 among those with high grievance. Trust in one’s own CEO also falls sharply, from 72 to 51. Comfort with business use of AI declines from 50 to 29, while trust in AI falls from 56 to 34. The report’s message is that grievance makes people more suspicious not only of institutions, but also of the leaders and technologies associated with them.

      It also deepens perceptions of institutional motive. On page 34, those with high grievance are much more likely to say news organisations would rather attract a large audience than tell people what they need to know, and more likely to believe media would support an ideology rather than inform the public. On page 35, the report finds that understanding ordinary people matters more for legitimacy than formal authority, especially among the highly aggrieved. That suggests a growing premium on empathy, fairness and lived relevance over status or office.

      4. What does the report say about business, and why does it treat business differently from the other institutions?

      Business occupies a complicated position in the report. On the one hand, it remains the most trusted institution globally at 62, ahead of NGOs at 58 and well ahead of government and media, both at 52. The report also argues that business is the only institution seen as both competent and ethical in its 2025 mapping, and it notes a 19-point increase in perceived business ethics since 2020 in the subset of countries used for that analysis.

      On the other hand, that relative advantage does not amount to a free pass. The report shows that people with high grievance are more likely, not less, to say business is not going far enough on affordability, climate change, retraining, misinformation and discrimination. At the same time, there is very strong cross-group agreement that business is obliged to provide good-paying jobs in local communities and to train or reskill employees. That is one of the report’s most important implications: trust in business is conditional on practical contribution, not symbolic positioning.

      The report also gives CEOs a circumscribed licence to act. Majorities say CEOs are justified in engaging on societal issues when they can make a major impact, improve business performance, protect stakeholders or address problems their business helped create. This is not an argument for unlimited corporate activism. It is a case for relevance, competence and accountability. Business has permission to lead where it can deliver, but not to pretend it can solve the crisis alone.

      5. What broader conclusion does the report reach, and what are its practical implications?

      Edelman’s larger conclusion is that grievance must be addressed at root level. The report does not argue that one better campaign, one election or one executive message will restore confidence. Instead, it says institutions need to rebuild trust by producing fairer outcomes, improving people’s economic prospects, strengthening skills, investing in communities and improving the quality of information. On its own summary page, the report reduces this to four ideas: grievances must be addressed, business has a licence to act, business cannot act alone, and trust can restore optimism.

      That conclusion is reinforced by the relationship the report shows between trust, grievance and economic optimism. As trust rises across the nine-point trust spectrum, high grievance falls dramatically while optimism about one’s family’s economic future rises strongly. The implication is that trust is not treated here as a soft sentiment metric. It is positioned as a condition that supports social stability, confidence in the future and willingness to cooperate.

      For communicators, the report points to a more demanding brief. People are less persuaded by authority alone and more focused on whether leaders understand them, whether institutions benefit them fairly, and whether claims are backed by visible action. That means communication cannot substitute for delivery. In this report’s logic, credibility now depends on whether institutions can show economic usefulness, fairness and genuine understanding of stakeholder reality.